New Moon: The Darkward Tale Continues
by Reniefuwa
Summary: Continues from Twilight: A Darkward Tale. Your favorite vamp and his family are back, a little more twisted, a little more serious than before. Writers thrive on reviews, and I'm no exception!
1. Prologue

I leaned back in one of the recliners of the sitting room and smiled. Why shouldn't I? As far as I was concerned, Bella was as good as bound to me, her klutziness would ensure that the requisite life-threatening experience would occur again in a relatively short time, and last night had been "payback time" for Rosalie* in the "Rumpus Room." I had every reason to be feeling good.

Or so I thought.

Carlisle walked into the room. He walked until he stood over me, and smiled pleasantly down at me. "You look," he said, "like the cat that got the cream."

"Why not?" I asked smugly, and perhaps a bit defiant. "Bella's as good as mine, and as soon as she is, our little 'deal' is fulfilled. No more 'play dates.'"

"Yes, I can see why that might be an enviable position for you." He began a slow walk around the chair in which I was reclining. "Tell me something, though. Do you think she is as close to you as you imagine her to be?"

"Pff! Of course!" I responded with bravado. Some of it might have been false.

"Hmm. And if you left, do you think she would wait for you to come back to her?"

"Yeah," I said, even less sure this time.

"Really?" He turned his head to look at me, and Carlisle's eyes lit up with excitement, and maybe challenge. "Then you wouldn't mind a little wager on it, would you?"

I became cautious at this sudden turn. "Wager?"

"Here's how it works: You leave Bella, 'break up' with her, as it were. Don't worry, you will come back eventually. Then you watch surreptitiously at what she does next. If she waits for you to come back, and immediately accepts you again upon your return, you win, and not only is our 'deal' fulfilled, but I will give you any advice or help that you want or need in your acquisition of Bella, _free of charge_."

It felt like my heart leaped into my throat. _That_ would be an unexpected boon, a clear advantage to me. I was pretty sure Carlisle would hold himself to that, too, because such things were a source of great amusement to him, even when he got the short end of it.

"However," Carlisle continued. _And here's the kicker. _"If she finds someone else, and chooses that person over you, you lose, and will consequently be at my beck and call for the next _fifty years_. You're good for it, I know."

"No way, uh-uh." I folded my arms. "Nothing is worth that. I could take 10, easy."

"Forty."

"Fifteen."

"Thirty."

"Twenty."

"Twenty-five?" Carlisle extended his hand to be shaken.

I hesitated a moment, then, reached out to take it. "Deal."

*"Twilight: A Darkward Tale" chapter 14. Vampires never forget a thing like vengeance.


	2. Party Surprise

"So, how do we justify my leaving?" I asked Carlisle.

"Simple, really. Everything else until now has been 'for her own good,' right? Well, this will be, too."

"How?"

"Easy. All we have to do is get her to bleed in front of the whole family. Then one of us will attack her in a 'frenzy.'"

"What?! You want me to—"

"Of course not, Edward. _You_ will be the one swooping in to rescue her from the 'deranged monster.' Your attempt at evading disaster will accidentally cause an even bigger problem, you will alternately blame her then yourself, and come to the conclusion that she is better off without you."

"Annnnd what about the returning part?"

"Naturally, you will later return, tell you're sorry and that you want her back, recite some poetry that Alice will write for you, and sweep her into your arms for the big finale."

"Naturally," I said sardonically.

"Naturally," he said enthusiastically.

…

The event would be her birthday party. The party Bella didn't want. Not like we cared. I let Rosalie wrap the gifts. She would carefully wrap them, placing one very thin razor blade underneath the wrapping at one seam. The idea was, Bella would think she just got a particularly grisly paper cut. Just because, you know, she's klutzy like that. Why were we throwing her a party when we knew she didn't want one? Our answer: because Alice wanted to throw one.

_**ONE razor blade, Rosalie!**_

_**Spoilsport.**_

The day of the party we had a peculiar assignment for English class: we were supposed to watch the 1960's theater production of "Romeo and Juliet." Bella was worried about crying at the end; she said she memorized the play, and maybe she had, but I knew for a fact that she didn't understand it. How did I know? She thought it was some kind of tragic love story. Really, it's a tragicomedy. I always have to concentrate on not giggling at the irony of the "dead girl-not!" at the end. Bella cried when Juliet woke and discovered her dead lover.

_Aw, isn't that cute? She thinks we're like the tragic couple! Ok, Bella, that sounds like more fun anyway. Quick; I'll drink some poison and you stab yourself! Let's hurry this along, huh?_

Alas, it was not to be. _Le sigh. _But at least the fun part was coming up. I drove her up to the Cullen house, and she again tried to convince me to turn her. Again I turned her down. _Bella, you're perfectly alive and healthy, and unfortunately I cannot alter that state myself; that would put something of a kink in our supposedly romantic relationship._

We got to the house, walked up the stairs into the living room, and were greeted with, "Happy birthday, Bella!" Wow, they had really decked the room out. There were streamers, a big banner, and a gorgeous cake. All in pink; nice touch.

Esme came up and hugged her first. "Happy birthday." She was genuinely happy and in the spirit of the celebration. It always makes me a little embarrassed for her when she obviously "doesn't get it" like this, even after we explained everything to her. _Simple minds, simple pleasures, I guess._

Next Carlisle came and put his arm around Bella's shoulders. "Sorry about this, Bella," he said in a stage whisper. "We couldn't rein Alice in." Bella looked kind of leery about Carlisle holding her so close like that, and for once I agreed with her completely; I felt the same way. The only difference was, she didn't know why she should feel that way.

Emmett and Rosalie said their hellos, and Emmett excused himself to run his assigned errand. "I have to step out for a second." He winked obviously at Alice. "Don't do anything funny while I'm gone." Funny he should say that to Alice…

Alice skipped forward to give her a hug while Jasper hung back by the staircase, presumably to "avoid temptation" or something. It was all an act, of course.

"Time to open presents!" Alice declared, and led Bella to the table.

"Alice, I told you I didn't want anything—"

"—And I didn't listen," Alice finished. "Open it." She placed the first box in Bella's hands.

Bella hefted it for a moment, testing its weight, perplexed at its lightness. She ripped off the paper, opened the empty box, and looked up in confusion at us. "Um…thanks?"

We all smiled, and Jasper actually laughed. "It's a stereo for your truck. Emmett's installing it right now so you can't return it," he said.

Yeah, yeah, but that gift was just as much for me as it was for her. Her truck radio got _terrible_ reception. I had to do _something_.

"Thanks, guys," said Bella. "Thanks, Emmett!" she yelled, so she knew Emmett heard.

"Open mine and Edward's next!" Alice demanded, nearly bouncing on her toes, she was so excited. We all were, anticipating what would likely happen next.

Bella turned to glare at me. "You promised!" she accused, referring to a promise I'd made not to buy her a gift.

"I didn't spend a dime," I replied innocently. "Please just open it."

_**Get ready, **_Carlisle told me.

I telepathically linked everyone in with Carlisle.

_**You all know your roles. It's Showtime. **_

Bella slid her finger under the tape to release it, and jerked her hand away. "Shoot," she said, examining her bleeding finger. The razor blade had done its job.

_**There's the blood! Edward, now!**_

I jumped a little at his vehemence, and tackled Bella, crying out a warning at the same time. Carlisle yelled performance instructions. _**Jasper! Frenzy! **_My push caused Bella to slide across the table, shattering the crystal dishes at the same time that Jasper "attacked" me, snarling and gnashing his teeth, presumably trying to get at Bella. _**Rosalie, now! **_Her job was a little more subtle. She had to throw small pieces of glass as projectiles, and embed them in Bella's arm, just to make sure she bled profusely from the "accident." This was the part I was nervous about. She didn't like that she had to help me with my "project." Rosalie was the best marksman of us all when it came to things like this, but I wasn't sure she wouldn't use the glass to kill Bella now and end this whole thing before I wanted to.

_Oh, good, she cooperated. _

Emmett grabbed Jasper and secured his arms behind his back as we rehearsed, and then we all stood back, letting Bella feel the full effect of what we were about to do.

_**Okay, everyone, **_Carlisle prompted, _**Get your rape face on. **_

Bella looked up dazedly into the eyes of six hungry vampires. We all watched in satisfaction as fear grew in her eyes.


	3. Cleanup

Chapter 2

Carlisle snapped out orders, out loud now. "Emmett, Rose, get Jasper outside." She and Emmett wrestled him outside, and Esme followed.

"I'm so sorry, Bella," she said as she walked out, her voice filled with remorse. _She _meant it, too. I don't think I will ever understand that.

When everyone except Carlisle, Alice, and me had left the room, I let Carlisle see to Bella. I didn't know if I could trust her to his ministrations, but I didn't have a choice at this point; I didn't know much about medicine. I had to face it; my business had been more about _breaking_ human bodies than mending them. I'm a vampire, that's what I do.

We lifted Bella up onto the table, and Carlisle applied an improvised tourniquet to her arm. _Wow, really? I wonder if Rosalie meant to cut that deep…Probably did._

"How are you, Bella?" Carlisle asked.

"I'm fine," she said, and gasped at the pressure Carlisle put on her arm. "You can go, Edward."

"I can handle it." I didn't want to go. Now Carlisle had her in a very vulnerable state; I didn't know _what_ he intended to do.

"You don't need to be a hero. Carlisle can fix me up without your help. Get some fresh air." Of course, she thought I was staying for some stupid sentimental reason. I still didn't want to leave her here, like this.

"I'll stay."

"Ugh! Why are you so masochistic?"

"Edward, you may as well go find Jasper," Carlisle chimed in. "I'm sure he's upset right now, and I doubt he'll listen to anyone but you." _**Go. Now. **__That_ was a 'voice' that promised dire consequences if I defied him.

"You might as well do something useful," Alice added. _**It's not like you were any help here, loverboy. **_

I couldn't endure the double-team, and left the house quickly. I didn't go far, though. I wanted to know everything I could about what was going on in there. I was painfully aware of Carlisle's presence there, so I concentrated first on building a link with Bella's mind, hopefully something Carlisle wouldn't be able to detect.

Once I was sure of my connection (at least as sure as I could ever be), I settled on the roof and let Bella's thoughts and feelings flow over and through me. The first thing I noticed was that she was distinctly uncomfortable around Carlisle. She thought it was because of her sensitivity to blood, but I knew it was her sensitivity to Carlisle.

Humans have an instinctive sixth sense about them. Those who pay attention to it earlier in life become the psychics and ghost whisperers of their time. Bella was obviously no psychic, but she could sense there was something off about Carlisle. Every living thing could, it seemed. In spite of his smiling face, there was extreme danger and cruelty simmering just below the surface, waiting for the right avenue to come out.

Bella watched in astonishment as Carlisle began carefully removing the pieces of glass from her arm. "Wow, how can you do this? Even Alice and Esme…"

"Years and years of practice. I barely notice the scent anymore." _Yeah right, you once likened it to working at a confectioner's shop. For a while you get sick of candy, then a particular sugary thing catches your eye, and you just have to taste it. "Barely notice it," my a— my foot. _

"Would it be harder if you took a long holiday away from the hospital? Then you weren't around blood?" Crap, why is she asking a question like that?

"Maybe. I've never felt the need for an extended holiday. I enjoy my work too much." _If by "work" you mean pissing me off on a regular basis, then yes, you do enjoy it too much._

Carlisle examined her arm once more. "There. All done."

I could sense her gathering her courage. She was going to ask Carlisle about…oh, boy, here we go.

"So, in the beginning, why did you even try a different way than the obvious?"

He smiled tolerantly. "Hasn't Edward told you that story?"

"Yes, but I'm trying to understand your thinking…"

"OK." He threw some alcohol pads into a glass bowl and set them on fire. "You know my father was a clergyman, and he had some pretty extreme views about his faith. Even though I didn't agree with him, I have never doubted the existence of God, or at least, some deity. This probably sounds bizarre coming from a vampire, but I'm hoping there is still a point to existence, even for those such as us. I guess I'm hoping we'll get some measure of credit for trying."

_Gag! Damn but he's good, though. I think I would choke on that much hogwash._

"What about Edward?"

"He agrees with me about God, I think, and that people have souls. By the same token, though, he believes we have lost ours." He looked Bella in the eyes now, making her a bit nervous again. "Now, looking at things in that light, if you believed as he does, could you take away _his_ soul?"

It was not the question she was ready for, and she had no answer. Then she argued with Carlisle about _him_ turning her, and he changed the subject to something else she would want to hear.

"It was Edward's mother who made up my mind." He stared out the window. I sat up where I was on the roof. "Her name was Elizabeth Masen. His father died in the first wave of influenza. Edward gets his looks from her, you know. Same bronze shade to her hair, even the same green eyes."

"His eyes were green?" She tried to picture it. So did I.

"Yes. She was so obsessive about her son. Even tried to nurse him from her own sickbed, which was probably what did her in. I came to see her on what would be her deathbed. Her fever was raging, and her body had grown too weak to fight it anymore.

"She didn't look weak, though, not when she lurched up from the bed and ordered, 'Save him! You must do everything in your power. What others cannot do, that is what you must do to my Edward.'"

Bella was staring with wide eyes at this story. I was interested too. Carlisle had never told me anything about either of my parents. Why was he telling Bella now?

"There lay Edward, dying, and beside him, his mother already dead. I looked at Edward. Sick as he was, he was still beautiful. There was something good and pure about his face." _Sure, in the 'you sure got a purty mouth' kind of way. _

"So I stole him out the back door while everyone was preoccupied, and carried him back to my then-home.

"I wasn't sure what had to be done. I settled for recreating the wounds I'd received myself, centuries ago in London. I later felt bad about that. It was more painful and lingering than necessary."

That last part was completely true. Not the part about him feeling bad, the part about it being more painful than necessary. I remember that, remember it well. He enjoyed it. A lot.

"I wasn't sorry, though. I've never been sorry that I saved Edward." _Or Rosalie, right? Then you had two vampires bound to you, creepy old man. _

"Well, I suppose I should take you home now."

"I'll do that," I said, making an entrance in the doorway.

"Carlisle can take me." She was worried about me 'losing control.'

"No, I'm okay, I'll do it." No way would I give Carlisle another one-on-one session with her. What the crap was all that stuff about my mother?

_**Did I really have green eyes?**_

_**Yes, and they were very pretty. Black Irish, your father was, and your mother was Irish too. **_Figures.

Alice shoved the rest of her presents into Bella's arms as we went out the door. "You can thank me later—after you've opened them," she said with a wink. W—was she coming on to Bella? _That's just what I need, competition. _What have I been missing between those two?

We drove home, and Bella was annoying, mostly trying to apologize for something that was not her fault and actually went exactly as planned, not that she knew that. We pulled up to her house and I killed the engine. Eventually I promised to meet her in her room and stay the night, just to stop her yapping.

She went in, exchanged hellos with her father, changed for bed, and I met her in her room.. "Hi," I greeted her from where I was seated on her bed.

She bounded over and climbed into my lap. "Hi. Can I open my presents now?"

"Suddenly you're all excited about them?"

"Well, I'm curious what's in them."

She reached out and picked up Carlisle and Esme's gift. I hastily snatched it away from her to rip off the wrapping myself. "Allow me." She would probably be more careful this time given what happened earlier, and if she was more careful she might find another razor blade. Or two. Or…I really didn't know how enthusiastic Rosalie had been with them, and I didn't want Bella to find out.

"Are you sure I can handle lifting up the lid?" she muttered sarcastically when I gave it back to her. Let her be sulky. At least she didn't find the blade.

She looked at the paper for a long moment. "Hey! These are tickets for a vacation! I can't believe it! Renee will flip! You don't mind, do you? All that sun?"

"I think I can handle it, as long as you're there." '_Gag' again._

She reached for my present, and I unwrapped that for her too. It was the CD I'd burned for her. She stared at, perplexed. "What is it?"

_This is something we call a CD, Bella. People in the twenty-first century listen to them sometimes, when their MP3 players or iPods break down, and they haven't bought a new one yet. Sorry, I guess I should've known you would need some explanation._

…Was what I wanted to say, but instead I said nothing, just took it and placed it inside her CD player and hit play.

The sound of her "lullaby" drifted softly through the room. She recognized it, and soon tears were dripping down her cheeks. She's as sentimental as your average human, at least.

This was getting tiresome. "It's getting late," I said, and quickly scooped her up and tucked her into bed. I lay down next to her-outside the blanket, chaste and unscandalous as you please, and put my arm around her. She leaned into me and sighed.

"Thanks again," she whispered.

"You're welcome."

"Hey, I was thinking, since it's still my birthday, I'd like you to kiss me again."

"We're greedy tonight, aren't we?"

"Mm-hm." She tilted her face up to mine.

I obliged, and met her halfway. This would be our last kiss for quite some time, so I made it something to remember. I kissed her harder, more urgently, threading my fingers through her hair and holding her head against mine.

She responded enthusiastically, more than I anticipated, moving her mouth on mine and thrusting her body up towards mine through the thin blanket. This was what I was hoping for, somewhere down the line, this complete surrender to me.

Not tonight.

I stopped kissing her and pushed her gently away from me. She collapsed onto her pillow, gasping. "Well, that was a little out of line," I said.

"_I _certainly don't mind." _I bet you don't, you lusty wench._

"Go to sleep, Bella."

"No, I want you to kiss me again."

"You're testing my self-control." There was a bit of truth to that. "Stop pushing your luck and go to sleep."

She pouted, but settled in to sleep, curling into my body.

_Sleep well, Isabella Swan. If everything goes as planned, it's the last time you will for quite some time…_


	4. Breaking Up is Hard to Do

I'm so happy I get to come back to this, after all this time! YAAAAAY!

And now, here's the chapter you've all been waiting for!

Chapter 3

That night we cleared out. Took everything we couldn't easily replace, swiped everything from the Rumpus Room not nailed or bolted down, essentially left the mansion abandoned, and to all appearances, got the hell outta' Dodge…I mean, Forks.

Well, everyone but me left. I had to do the whole "let her down easy" thing…or something. I would have to make myself distant.

I was there when she woke the next morning with a truly spectacular headache. I gave her a forehead kiss before darting out her window. No crooked smile this time.

"How do you feel?" I asked, opening the door of her truck for her when she got to school.

"Perfect," she replied, and winced as the sound of the truck door slamming intensified her headache for a moment.

We went through the morning together silently, but I could read that she wanted to talk to Alice, to know what the "seer" saw for us in the future. Too bad she was about to be disappointed. We walked into the lunchroom, and the first thing Bella noticed was that Alice wasn't at our usual table. She talked herself into thinking her class just got out late, until she saw two of Alice's classmates also in the lunchroom. Then she knew.

"Where's Alice?" she asked anxiously.

I looked at the granola bar I was slowly crumbling between my fingertips and  
answered. "She's with Jasper."

"Oh. Is he okay?"

"He's gone away for a while."

"What? Where?"

I just shrugged. "Nowhere in particular."

"And Alice, too," I said quietly.

"Yes. She'll be gone for a while. She was trying to convince him to go to Denali." That was one of our cover stories, anyway. It fit in with what happened during the ill-fated "birthday party," and plausible enough to make Bella believe it, and at the same time to ensure that she not tell anyone.

She audibly swallowed, and looked as if she was about to cry. Why-? Oh. A quick skim of her mind revealed all to me. She thought we were leaving because of her; that it was all her fault. Eh, let her think it. Besides, if I even tried to address that, she might get the hint that I can read her better than I led her to believe. Which was not at all.

"Is your arm bothering you?" I asked innocently.

"Who cares about my stupid arm?" she muttered in disgust. She sighed and put her head down on the table, and that ended that discussion.

"You'll come over later tonight?" she asked after school as I walked her silently to her truck. I always came over, after all.

"Later?"

"I have to work. I had to trade with Mrs. Newton to get yesterday off."

"Oh."

"So you'll come over when I'm home, though, right?" She sounded less sure now.

"If you want me to."

"I always want you," she said vehemently, with perhaps a little more intensity than the conversation required, as if stronger emotion would get me to do it.

"All right, then," I said as indifferently as I could manage.

We went our separate ways away from school, and Bella started panicking. It was quite fun to listen to, actually. She worried about when she would see Alice and Jasper again. She thought that Alice wouldn't stay away because she spent so much time over at Bella's—_the hell?! _Why was Alice spending so much time over there?! _I'm_ supposed to have the claim over this girl, and Alice is poaching in my territory? We were going to have to have a little talk when I saw Alice again.

I got to her house before Bella got home, so Charlie let me in.

"Hi, Edward, Bella's not here yet, but I ordered pizza, and it's only been here a few minutes. Help yourself; the game's on in the TV room."

"Thanks." I went to the kitchen and grabbed a slice. Some kind of meat lovers' or something; a man's pizza; full of protein and delicious. I took it back to the living room and settled on the easy chair. Charlie and I didn't talk much, mostly grunted at each other and commented on the game. It was a deep conversation. It pretty much ended when Bella came home.

"Dad? Edward?"

"In here," Charlie called.

"Hi," she said weakly.

"Hey, Bella," her father answered, eyes never moving from the screen. "We just had pizza. I think it's still on the table."

"Okay." She left to rummage around in the kitchen. While she was there, she glanced at the pile of presents her parents got her for her birthday. Her eyes lighted on the camera her mom gave her. I could read the notions flitting through her mind. She wasn't planning on being around much longer, anyway, and might want some memories of things from before, so…she ran up to her room. _Snap_! She came back downstairs and aimed the camera at Charlie and me. _Snap!_ The flash got Charlie's attention.

"What are you doing, Bella?" Charlie complained.

"Oh, come on." She pretended to smile and went to sit on the floor in front of the sofa where Charlie lounged. "You know Mom will be calling soon to ask if I'm using my presents. I have to get to work before she can get her feelings hurt. Hey, Edward," she said brightly, "take one of me and my dad together." She tossed me the camera, and we took some more pictures, mostly of me and Bella. I deliberately kept any contact casual, though Bella clung to me like she was afraid I might evaporate or something if she let go for a second.

When we were done taking pictures, I unwound myself from Bella's embrace and sat in the armchair again, alone. Bella plunked down on the sofa and pulled her knees to her chin. Then we all three watched TV. Occasionally she would glance over at me disconsolately. I ignored her.

Finally the TV show ended. I stood up. "I'd better get home."

"See ya," Charlie said from the sofa.

Bella walked me to the door, but I didn't stay the night this time.

School the next day was pretty much a repeat of the day before, except I did less talking. But then, so did Bella, so thank goodness for small favors. She didn't ask me to come over again that night.

I decided to end this awkwardness the next day. Bella was determined that we would talk about it anyway, so it gave me the opening I needed.

"Do you mind if I come over today?" I asked before we got to the truck, beating her to the punch.

"Of course not."

"Right now?" I asked again, opening the door for her.

"Sure."

"Okay, I'll meet you there."

When she arrived at her house (I beat her there, of course) I reached to take her book bag as she climbed out of her truck, and then threw it back against the seat. "Come for a walk with me," I said, taking her hand. I began to walk, and my unspoken message was clear: 'you can walk, or you can be dragged, but either way you're following.'

She tried to pull away, but my grip was too strong for her. Duh. I hauled her out behind the house into the woods, still in sight of the clearing. By now she was mad.

"Okay, let's talk," she said. It sounded braver than she felt.

"Bella, we're leaving."

"Why now? Another year-"

"Bella, it's time. How much longer could we stay in Forks, after all? Carlisle can barely pass for thirty, and he's claiming thirty-three now. We'd have to start over soon regardless." That was our other cover story, though that one had a ring of truth to it. We could have made Carlisle appear older with makeup, but again, I just needed a plausible tale for Bella.

Huh. She didn't seem as shocked as I'd anticipated. What-? Then it hit me. What Bella _thought_ I meant. I think we both realized at the same time.

"When you say we-," she whispered.

"I mean my family and myself." Each word enunciated and distinct.

"Okay," she said. "I'll come with you."

"You can't, Bella. Where we're going... It's not the right place for you."

"Where you are is the right place for me."

"I'm no good for you, Bella." Whoa. When did I get stuck in a soap opera?

"Don't be ridiculous." She was begging. Delicious. "You're the very best part of my life."

"My world is not for you," I said grimly, at least I hope it was grim.

"You promised! In Phoenix, you promised that you would stay-"

"As long as that was best for you," I interrupted to correct her.

"No! This is about my soul, isn't it?" she shouted, furious, the words exploding out of her mouth, yet somehow still pleading. "Carlisle told me about that, and I don't care, Edward. I don't care! You can have my soul. I don't want it without you-it's yours already!" _Aw, thanks, Bella, that's the best gift anyone's ever given me. Too bad I don't want it at the moment. Though the ease with which you're willing to give up your soul is heartening, so buck up, champ._

"Bella, I don't want you to come with me." I spoke the words slowly and precisely, watching as she absorbed what I was really saying.

"You... don't... want me?" She repeated the words, apparently confused by the way they sounded. _Lovely bit of editing you did there, sweetie, but not precisely what I said. Still, the main idea's there, so I suppose I can accept it. Now for the death knell: _

"No."

"Don't." Her voice was just a whisper now. "Don't do this."

"I'm... tired of pretending to be something I'm not, Bella. I am not human. "I looked directly into her eyes. "I've let this go on much too long, and I'm sorry for that."

She swallowed, and said, "If…that's what you want." Aw, she's trying to be strong.

I reached over and cupped her cheek with one hand. "Take care of yourself. Charlie still needs you."

She nodded.

I stepped away. "That's everything, I suppose. We won't bother you again."

She started. "Alice isn't coming back," she realized.

I shook my head slowly.

"No. They're all gone. I stayed behind to tell you goodbye."

"Alice is gone?" she said in disbelief. _Hey, lay off Alice already!_

"She wanted to say goodbye, but I convinced her that a clean break would be better for you. Goodbye, Bella," I said in the same quiet, peaceful voice.

"Wait!" she choked out the word, reaching for me.

But I was already gone.

Gone and circling back to her house to remove everything that would remind her of me—the pictures, any of my clothing still lying around, and that CD I made for her, before she got back. Poor dear was in shock, would probably go to pieces in the short term. Meh, whatever. I brought everything back to the Cullen house, and then went back to see how Goldilocks was doing in the forest. I expected her to be sitting against a tree or something, numb or perhaps bawling her eyes out. I didn't expect what I found.

Not only had she not gone home, she had wandered into the forest! Honestly, does this girl possess a shred of common sense? Now she was lost in the woods at night. There were all kinds of things that could get her out here, even from the purely natural. A cougar would find her easy pickings, and a hungry bear would make mincemeat out of her! Now I had to spend all night watching out for her, and I couldn't even help when the search parties wandered her way—twice—and she said nothing, because that would have given the game away.

Eventually she was found by—oh, HELL no! _Sigh. _Some guy from the reservation. No help for it. At least it wasn't that _puppy_ that's always running after her. I didn't know this guy. All I knew was that he was one of the _special _ones.

He only seemed interested in getting Bella away and safe, so I supposed he was all right. He got Bella safely home, and the doctor was there, and soon Charlie was too, so I was no longer needed.

There was a bonfire over at the reservation tonight, before search parties were requested. I guess they heard we peeled out. Remind me to send them a thank-you bomb someday.

OCTOBER…

NOVEMBER…

DECEMBER…

JANUARY_: Oh my GOD this is the worst surveillance job ever. This girl hasn't done anything interesting in FOUR SOLID MONTHS!! Carlisle is beginning to talk about calling off our wager altogether on account of SHEER BOREDOM! If she doesn't do something soon, I may have to kick-start her ass somehow._


	5. Waking Up, with Extra Clause

Scratch that last comment. She did do _one _interesting thing in those four months. It was about a week after I left her in the woods. She came out of the house, slamming the door open. She stopped and glared at her truck. For a moment I thought she would begin kicking it or something, but she climbed inside and started clawing at the dashboard.

I crept around trying to see what she was doing without letting her see me, and then I saw it: she was tearing out the radio we'd installed in her truck. It really wasn't that difficult to get out with the right tools, but she was bound and determined to rip it out with her bare hands.  
She continued clutching, pulling, and falling back against the seat, over and over, screaming incoherently. When she finally got it, her fingertips were bright red, and small trickles of blood were running through the lines on her palms. She took the thing out of her truck, went inside the house, and screamed one more time.

Then she went numb and virtually lifeless for four long, boring months.

* * *

Finally, someone with some influence over Bella had had enough of her moping.

The sound of a fist hitting the table reverberated through the house. "THAT'S IT, Bella! I'm sending you home," Charlie declared.

Bella mumbled something too low for me to hear from where I was observing.

"I'm sending you to Renee, to Jacksonville," he clarified.

It took several minutes before his meaning penetrated her feeble mind.

"What did I do?" She sounded on the verge of tears. Still better than the numbness she had been carrying around the last four months.

"You didn't do anything. That's the problem. You never do anything."

"You want me to get into trouble?" _That's the first conclusion you come to when he says he wants you to do something? All numbed up inside, but still have room for sarcasm, eh, Bella? No wait! I get it, you really can't do anything _without _getting into some kind of trouble, can you? My bad.  
_

"Trouble would be better than this... this moping around all the time!" _Yeah! You tell her, Charlie! I'm actually starting to like you, Chief Swan_.

"I am not moping around."

"Wrong word," he grudgingly conceded. "Moping would be better-that would be doing something. You're just... lifeless, Bella. I think that's the word I want." _Hahaha! Ooh, ouch! How I've missed being entertained by anything in this household, I should get some popcorn!_

"I'm sorry, Dad." Her apology sounded a little flat. Bitch hadn't even noticed how much all her zombie-ness had caused Charlie so much concern. Heck, even I noticed! And I don't even _care_!

"I don't want you to apologize."

She sighed. "Then tell me what you do want me to do." _Hey, you're supposed to be saying that to me!_

"Listen, honey. I think that-that maybe you need some help."

"Help?"

"Maybe, well, maybe if you talked to someone about it. A professional."

"You want me to see a shrink?!"

"Maybe it would help."

"And maybe it wouldn't help one little bit." _Aw, c'mon, Bella, it would be fun! You could tell the nice lady all about your immortal vampire boyfriend, and then she could introduce you to some of her other friends, and they would take you to your very own room, you would go nuts, I could Turn you then, and we would have another Alice! Hey, that's not a bad idea. Hm...  
_

"Look," I said in a flat voice. "I'll go out tonight, if you want. I'll call Jess or Angela."

"That's not what I want," he argued, frustrated.

"I don't understand, Dad. First you're mad because I'm not doing anything, and then you say you don't want me to go out."

"I want you to be happy-no, not even that much. I just want you not to be miserable. I think you'll have a better chance if you get out of Forks."  
_Hey, whoa! Let's not get too hasty, now. At least when she's moping she's still moping about _Moi_. If she leaves, she might meet someone else who actually cares about her, and that would be awfully awful for me.  
_

Lucky for me, Bella flatly refused to leave, and even promised to go out with J-something later for good measure. Whew! One bullet dodged, anyway.

She managed to get J-whatever (_J-friend; I shall call her J-friend)_ to agree to see a movie with her that night. I was a little surprised, actually. Guess Jessica was even more kind-hearted than I thought. Boy would _she _be fun to corrupt!

They were going to see a movie called "Dead End." How deliciously appropriate. Bella ran out the door at the sound of Jessica's horn, and away they went to Port Angeles. I followed them there. This was the most interesting thing to happen to Bella in ages, and it's not like I had anything else to do, anyway. The movie was just some gore flick, and not that interesting.

The fun began when they left the theater.

"That was the scariest movie I think I've ever seen. I'll bet we're going to have nightmares tonight," said J-friend.

"No doubt about that," Bella replied.

"Where do you want to eat?"

"I don't care."

"Okay."

They began walking down the street, toward a slightly shady stretch of road.

J-friend stopped talking and wasn't looking at Bella anymore. Her face was tense; she stared straight ahead and walked fast. As I watched, her eyes darted quickly to the right, across the road, and back again. I glanced around and saw what had made her so nervous.

They were on a short stretch of unlit sidewalk. The little shops lining the street were all locked up for the night, windows black. Half a block ahead, the streetlights started up again, and I could see, farther down, the bright golden arches of the McDonald's they were heading for. Across the street there was one open business. The windows were covered from inside and there were neon signs, advertisements for different brands of beer, glowing in front of them. The biggest sign, in brilliant green, was the name of the bar: One-Eyed Pete's. I vaguely remembered that bar. I think I picked up a chick there-no, wait, Alice brought a guy home back from that place once. Rocked his world, and borrowed drugs from Carlisle to make him forget it happened. That thought made me smile. The metal door of the bar was propped open; it was dimly lit inside, and the low murmur of many voices and the sound of ice clinking in glasses floated across the street. Lounging against the wall beside the door were four men.

I glanced at J-friend. Her eyes were fixed on the path ahead and she moved briskly. She didn't look frightened-just wary, trying to not attract attention to herself. _Perceptive and smart, that girl is._

Bella paused, looking back at the four men. She felt a strong sense of déjà vu. This was a different road, a different night, but the scene was so much the same. One of them was even short and dark. As she stopped and turned toward them, that one looked up in interest.

"Bella?" J-friend hissed. "What are you doing?"

She shook her head. "I think I know them..." she muttered.

Really? Was she really going to go over to those men who reminded her of the _potential rapists_ that accosted her that other time in Port Angeles?  
J-friend was beginning to get frantic. Small wonder. Her voice cracked in panic as she called after Bella. "Bella, come on!"

Bella ignored her and continued toward them as if in a daze. _What the-_? She was getting an adrenaline rush from this! _Well, why not? I'm sure if I still had human anatomy, I would get one from Carlisle's various "attentions" toward me, too.  
_

She was halfway across the street when Jess caught up to her and grabbed her arm.

"Bella! You can't go in a bar!" she hissed.

"I'm not going in," she said absently, shaking J-friend's hand off. "I just want to see something..."

"Are you crazy?" she whispered. "Are you suicidal?"

That question caught my attention, and Bella focused on her.

"No, I'm not." She said defensively. Well, at least she wasn't suicidal.

"At least she's not suicidal." I nearly jumped four feet in the air and quickly looked behind me to my left. _Carlisle! When did he get here? _He scoffed at my surprise. "Edward, I taught you everything you know about stalking a person like this, but I didn't teach you everything _I_ know. Actually, I've been watching you watching her for quite some time. I thought it would be fair to warn you that it looks like she might choose one of those men, and if she does, I will have won. Oh, and if she dies, you lose."

"What?! That was not part of the original deal! You can't just change something like-"

"Can and have, and there's nothing your _sweet little ass_ can do about it."

I hated the way he said that. "I hate you so much," I told him as I turned to watch Bella again, more anxious now than before. "Bella, stop this right now!" I said under my breath, willing her to listen to me.

She stopped. A light came back to her eyes, and I was a bit mystified. I opened my mind to hers, and realized with a jolt that _she had heard me._ I mean, yeah, I was thinking it, and pretty hard, too, but I don't think I was projecting, and she heard me.

"Carlisle, I think she heard me!"

"Really? And you didn't try to speak to her?" I shook my head. He absently rubbed his chin. "Interesting. This could be more fun than I anticipated."

I looked at him suspiciously. "Why? What do you know?"

He turned to me and smiled in that infuriating way he had. "Nothing for certain; a suspicion, nothing more. If I'm right...oh, that could be too fun! You should really take care of her now, though." He nodded down toward the girls.

Bella hadn't moved from her place before. "Go back to Jessica," I urged. "Don't do anything stupid."

She didn't move from where she stood, but her mind was working furiously, wondering how she could hear me (I wondered that too) and slowly taking in the situation around her.

Even after all that, Bella still engaged in light conversation with one who called out to her. All the while, her companion just stood there, wide-eyed in shock, horror, and disdain.

"I can't believe you, Bella Swan! I feel like I don't know who you are," she said when Bella finally came back and imperiously "suggested" that they go get dinner. _So do I, J-friend; so do I.  
_

When she finally got back (after an awkward, silent ride home, I might add) she went through a truly fascinating ordeal where she finally decided to feel the emotions she had been warding off with numbness. A high-pitched keening sound came from her throat. I lay on her roof above her bedroom and soaked in the feelings: pain foremost, and guilt over what she made Charlie feel. Doesn't sound like much, but my kind feed off the so-called "negative" emotions of humanity; maybe not physically, but we still love it. The feeding sent waves of pleasure through me, until it felt like a high, or what I'm assuming a high feels like. Don't think I ever got high as a human, and even if I did, it's been so long I don't remember.

I finally had to close myself off from her when I began shivering from the intensity of her emotional state.

Eventually she went to sleep, and I smiled when I heard the steady cadences of slumber, glad that I had stuck around long enough to "share" that with her.

* * *

**Ok, so incredulous line from this chapter: the part (in the book) where Bella wonders why her dad wants her to get going, and she says she's doing good in school, yada yada, and the last thing is that she _hardly ever serves leftovers!_** **What?! Since when is serving leftovers a cardinal sin? Why even bother putting extra food in the fridge if you're not planning to eat it later? You know what that brings to mind? It makes me think Charlie bitch-slaps her every time she serves something that isn't fresh-made that day. Oh, wait, that's Edward; my bad.**


	6. When Girl Meets Wolf Pup

It was a slow day at work, and boy was I ready for it to be over. To be more specific, Bella was at work, and I was-well, you know.

Blah blah, Mike and Bella, blah blah blah...huh?

"I'm telling you," said a man in the shop, looking for some hiking gear. "I've seen grizzlies pretty close up in Yellowstone, but they had nothing on this brute." He and his friend were pretty rank. Fresh from the mountains, apparently. Still not terribly riveting, but more interesting than Bella moping around on a slow day.

"Not a chance," said his friend. "Black bears don't get that big. The grizzlies you saw were probably cubs." This one sounded older, maybe a bit more seasoned than the first.

"On all fours it was taller than you," the first man insisted. "Big as a house and pitch-black. I'm going to report it to the ranger here. People ought to be warned–this wasn't up on the mountain, mind you–this was only a few miles from the trailhead."

What was this? These descriptions sounded kind of familiar. _Vampires occasionally hear reports like these shortly before...uh oh. Guess we Cullens have been hanging around here too long._ My teasing that reservation kid by calling him "puppy" wasn't off the mark at all, apparently.

The second man laughed and rolled his eyes. "Let me guess–you were on your way in? Hadn't eaten real food or slept off the ground in a week, right?"

"Hey, uh, Mike, right?" the bearded man called.

"Yes, sir," Mike replied, turning away from the _"enthralling" _conversation he was having with Bella.

"Say, have there been any warnings around here recently–about black bears?"

"No, sir. But it's always good to keep your distance and store your food correctly. Have you seen the new bear-safe canisters? They only weigh two pounds…"

_Ah, Mike. Ever the salesman._ I wanted to hear more about the "bear" the man swore he had seen, and stuck around well after Bella left to try and hear more, but unfortunately, it seemed that "bear man" had given up on convincing those two about his monster experience. Bummer. Although, if what I thought might be happening _was _happening, things were about to get really interesting and lively around here. _aaa-WWWooooooo!  
_

I had thought Bella would be better now, more fun, now that she was feeling things again and actually caring about stuff, even if only to the small degree that she was. Not so much. The only thing she felt like feeling, apparently, was the raw pain that she fancied was like a hole in her chest, or something cliché like that.

Seriously, even her recurring nightmare was only a nightmare because she interpreted it that way. It consisted of her walking through foliage, searching for something that wasn't there, and she couldn't find it, because there was nothing to find. Yeah, I was confused, too. I was beginning to think that circular reasoning had permanently imprinted on her thought processes.

Ooh, hey, caught up to her truck, and guess what? She's feeling angry! There we go! _That's_ what I was looking for. Pain is crippling, but anger makes you do things. Angry, impulsive, destructive things. _You have a big truck, Bella. Destroy something with it!...Or, okay, grab some motorcycles that are being given away by the neighbors? Since when do you know how to operate a motorcycle?_

"_Who cared if I was reckless and stupid? There was no reason to avoid recklessness, no reason why I shouldn't get to be stupid" _I caught from Bella's thoughts as she loaded the bikes into the bed of her truck, with the help of the friendly neighbor. My god, she was really serious. I was reminded of a phrase that is a curse in some cultures: "May you lead an interesting life." Things like this are why it's a curse.

"What are you going to do with them, anyway?" he asked. "They haven't worked in years."

"I kind of guessed that," she said, shrugging. "Maybe I'll take them to Dowling's."

He snorted. "Dowling would charge more to fix them than they'd be worth running."

She thought about her truck, then, of how she'd been worried at first because she thought it might need lots of repairs, but because Jacob had kept it up so well...INSPIRATION!! "You know what? That's okay. I know someone who builds cars," she said reassuringly.

_Jacob...was the one at the beach, the one she practically seduced...OH, HELL NO! Leave puppy-boy out of this!_

Bella was having none of it from me (probably because she couldn't actually, you know, _hear _me). As soon as she got home, she called her dad to get directions to Jacob's house. I couldn't do anything but glower and watch it play out.

Acting against ingrained habit, I followed her out to La Push, and even proceeded toward the reservation.

"Stop where you are." Oh, hello. A Quileute youth stood in my path all of a sudden. I had been so focused on Bella I hadn't even noticed his arrival.

"I just want to visit a friend."

"You're not welcome here." He suddenly morphed into a gigantic wolf-the hiker's "bear," no doubt-and started growling.

I sneered at his audacity. One lone wolf gonna stop this vampire? As if! "You gonna stop me?"

_**No. **_**We're**_** going to stop you.**_ _Oh, yeah, they're telepathic while in wolf form. Kudos to them._ Momentarily he was joined by two others approaching from left and right, all snarling now.

I crouched, growling my own warning, and slowly turned my head side to side, taking in all the potential combatants. My teeth extended into sharp points, and my nails grew longer, ending in claw-like tips.

Nah...I didn't feel like engaging in battle that day, not over something like that, as curious as I was. I slowly relaxed, backing away, but never turning my back or taking my eyes from them. They were just a little bit crazed, and hungry for vampire flesh. Not that they eat it, they just like to destroy it.

When I had backed far enough to make them comfortable, the two on the sides rose up and melted back into the surrounding forest. Only the first stayed and continued watching me, making sure I really did leave.

_Well, that was unproductive, and stupid to boot. Now I'm marked as a threat, or at least a potential threat. Or if not that, at very least a trouble-maker. Wonderful._

Obviously I couldn't observe what happened the rest of the afternoon, so I listened unashamedly as Bella told her dad all about it; or rather, as much as she would tell him, which wasn't that much, really, and gleaning everything .

"Hey, Dad," she said when he got home.

There was a pause before, "Hey, honey," his voice uncertain. "Did you have fun with Jacob?"

"Yeah, I did."

"Well, that's good. What did you two do?"

"I hung out in his garage and watched him work. Did you know he's rebuilding a Volkswagen?"

"Yeah, I think Billy mentioned that."

They didn't mention it again that night.

She had fun. She talked, and laughed, and observed people interacting with each other, and she had _fun _over there. _Now, if this were a situation where I wanted the girl in question to move on, that would be a good thing; but I don't want her to get over me; I can't _afford _her to get over me. This will not do. How do I interrupt this budding potential relationship when I'm officially not here, though? _

Turns out Bella got a nostalgic kick out of going to see Jacob. Since there was nothing there to remind her of me, and plenty from a past, more innocent time, she was able to get over it, at least long enough to do some actual socializing. Even Jacob's friends were there, laughing and joking about Jacob and Bella being an "item." _Not if I can help it, puppy. _She actually slept peacefully that night, too. How irritating.

That wasn't the last I would hear of him, even for the week, oh no. Next morning:

"What are you up to today?" Charlie asked.

"I'm going to hang out with Jacob again."

"Oh," he said.

"Do you mind?" I pretended to worry. "I could stay…"

He answered quickly. "No, no! You go ahead. Harry was going to come up to watch the game with me anyway."

"Maybe Harry could give Billy a ride up," she suggested.

"That's a great idea."

* * *

Great. What a great idea. With Bella on the res, and Old Man Wolf at the house, I would have to lay low somewhere else for a while. I decided to go back to the Cullen house for a while. Everyone expected it to be empty, so the surrounding area was deserted. I crept into the living room and lay face-up on the floor, eyes closed, spread-eagle. It just seemed like an appropriate position for my present mood.

"You've got a problem," a tinkling, feminine voice said from upstairs.

I opened my eyes and looked up. "Hello, Alice. What are you doing here?"

"Just over to see how big brother is doing." She descended the stairs slowly and gracefully, almost regally.

"Yeah? Well, 'big brother' isn't doing very well in the surveillance department."

"Why?"

"Bella has decided to spend copious amounts of time with those wolf folk."

"The werewolf clan? Not good. You can not keep track of her there." She walked over to me and sat cross-legged on the floor beside me.

"You think I don't know that? It gets worse; it's the boy she practically seduced so she could pump him for information about us."

"Ooh, and now he wants to do some 'pumping' of his own, is that it?"

I glared at her. "You didn't have to put it like that."

"I know, but it's much more entertaining that way. So, what are you gonna do?"

"What else can I do? Watch her when I can, use any other resource when I can't."

"I guess..."

Her tone change got my attention. "What is it? Did you _see _something?"

Her look grew pensive. "Kind of. Just...I like you, Edward. I really do see you as my big brother, and I hope you two get back together before the Fatal Leap."

The way she said the last two words sent shivers down my spine. "The Fatal Leap? What's that? Or what will it be? I mean--you know what I mean!"

"I know what you mean. I can't explain it. I just saw, in a really vague sort of way, someone was jumping from a high place, and didn't intend to survive the experience. Then you and Bella, both looking so sad. I don't even know if it was one of you two jumping, or someone who you both care about, I just know that it was a suicide leap."

Fuck. As if I didn't have enough problems. First, Bella latched onto wolf pup, and it looked like I might lose. Now one of us was going to die-deliberately. I knew I didn't want to end my existence any time soon; on the other hand, if Bella was the jumper, I would lose anyway, and I didn't want to think about what Carlisle..._NOT thinking about that!_

I sighed. "Thanks for telling me that, Alice. Now at least I have some idea of what to watch for."

"Sorry I couldn't be more helpful." She suddenly jumped up and caught me in a headlock, giving me a noogie for good measure. "You two are just so cute together!"

"Augh! Hey! Cut it out!"

She giggled and released me. "Hey, big bro, relax. Whatever it is, it won't happen for quite some time yet. You've got enough on your plate already; don't worry about this right now."

"Thanks, Alice."

"So, tell me what 'my new best friend' has been up to lately."

We talked late into the night, and it was the first time I've been that relaxed in a long time.

* * *

Bella had school the next day, so I could tail her again. Not that it was that exciting, but at least it alleviated my anxiety about what she was doing and with whom. I was reminded again of what an imperceptive bitch she really was. For example, she expected J-friend to already be over the little stunt she pulled after the movie in Port Angeles. When J-friend didn't want to talk, Bella assumes it's because she's embarassed. _SHE'S STILL PISSED AT YOU, YOU TWIT! See, this is why you need me; you're so judgmental all the time that you need the impossible standard that is me to bring you down a few notches, Bella.  
_

Why was I so irritated? Oh yeah, I hadn't eaten in like three weeks. Time to go hunting.

* * *

**So, that's what Edward was up to. Wasn't Alice cute? Don't forget to send me your LOL moments! I want to know what you think. True revision suggestions are most appreciated, and so are "I like it!" notes. If you don't like it, please tell me why. Have a good rest of the day, everyone!**


	7. New Thrills

I was sprawled out on the roof of the Forks Cullen house, waiting, when Carlisle found me again.

"You are going to lose this one, you know that, right?"

"Don't claim victory just yet, old man."

"Now why shouldn't I?"

"Because," I crawled to the peak of the roof and looked over to other side, "of that." I pointed to the old truck making its way down the path toward the house. "Bella is still visiting old haunts and places that remind her of me. She hasn't given up on me." I hoped she never would. "She's still trying to hear my voice again."

We both became silent and ducked behind the apex of the roof as she scanned the outside of the house. She went inside, and I knew she was taking stock of all that had been there, and all that was left now. There was less than there had been when we were living there, proof positive that we had moved on, as far as mortal eyes could tell.

A few minutes later she emerged from the house and got back into her truck, stifling a sob as she went. There were trails of tears on her cheeks. Excellent; good news for me.

"She sure took off in a hurry. Where do you suppose she's going?"

I knew Carlisle well enough by now to know he knew damn well where she was going, so I didn't even bother trying to lie. "Probably to her puppy boy-toy," I answered glumly.

"She can't have you, so she runs after him. That seems pretty convincing that she doesn't need you anymore. Admit defeat already."

"No. She's still looking for me. If I came back, she would jump right into my arms, I know it."

Carlisle folded his arms and gave me one of his "looks." "At the rate you're going, you won't admit I've won until they're consummating their marriage."

"Tch. Whatever."

He leaned in to whisper, "And I can tell you I'm not willing to wait that long." He abruptly jumped off the roof and vanished into the forest. His meaning was all too clear: I didn't have very much time left before he declared victory.

And there would be nothing I could do about it.

* * *

The next few days were at least a partial relief. Bella had school, so I was able to keep watch on her a good portion of the day, anyway.

J-friend still wouldn't talk to her, something I really didn't blame her for, but two of her friends were willing to forgive and forget, it seemed. Bummer. Her guy friend, who still had a crush on her, tried to ask her out, and she all but turned him down flat. That made me happy to observe. They did plan out a going-to-the-movies-as-friends night, though, so that made me a little wary.

It was when she went home that I was given a horrifying surprise. Puppy's vehicle was in the driveway. He was waiting for her to come home so they could hang, I guess. She invited him inside?! _No, don't do it! _Oh. How cute. They're study buddies. Bella, how could you? _We _were never study buddies! Maybe that was the problem. We never did cutesy normal things together, which would have reminded her of me every day. Instead, we mostly had special places and events, like the meadow and the house and that stupid baseball game. _Edward, you are a loser._

_So, what are you going to do about it?_

_First, I have to rid her of her obsession with this puppy._

_And how are you going to do that?_

_I have to get her thinking about me again. Wait, she may or may not have heard me in her head before, but either way, she already believes that she heard my voice. _

_So?_

_So, if I started actively projecting my voice inside her head, she may think it's just a continuation of the phenomenon, as long as it's sporadic, or at least seems incidental. _

_That sounds like a good plan. What next?_

_Next, I'm going to stop having two-person conversations in my own head; I'm pretty sure that's a sign of insanity._

_Roger that._

_

* * *

_

The next day Bella got a call from Jacob the Puppy. It sounded to me like my first death peal, even though I could only hear Bella's side of the conversation.

"Hey, Jake."

It took her a second to answer. "They're done? I can't believe it!"

"Jacob, you are absolutely, without a doubt, the most talented and wonderful person I know.  
You get ten years for this one." Wait, what the hell did _that_ mean? Ten years of _what_? The thought was already long gone in her mind, and all she could think about was her precious motorcycles. _Ten years of _what_?_

Bella laughed. "I'm on my way up!"

"Headed to see Jake?" Charlie said when she ran out the door. It wasn't really a question.

"Yep," she replied as she jumped in her truck.

"I'll be at the station later," Charlie called after her.

"Okay," she yelled back.

Charlie said, "Where's the fire?" as she gunned the engine.

That's what _I_ wanted to know. Even if she was excited about getting the motorcycles, she still seemed way too eager to join puppy-boy and spend time with him. I was starting to fear that Carlisle was right. Maybe I _had_ already lost. Not that I would admit it to _him_ any time soon.

I almost stalked off to sulk in disgust, when I remembered exactly what Bella had said: "They're done." _Of course! Today they are going to begin riding lessons! _

So I stuck around the edge of the res, waiting for them to emerge. After all, the area around the reservation is not prime motorbike riding ground, at least not for beginners. I was rewarded for my diligence with the sight of Bella and her puppy tag-along taking the bikes south of town in her pickup. Bella was driving slowly along the trail, glancing over at the ocean every now and again, when they came upon some cliff divers poised at the top of the precipice. One of them jumped, and Bella stomped on the brake, causing both in the cab to be thrown forward.

"No!" she shouted.

"What's wrong?" Jacob shouted back, alarmed.

"That guy–he just jumped off the cliff! Why didn't they stop him? We've got to call an  
ambulance!" she threw open her door and started to get out.

Jacob laughed, and she spun to stare at him wildly. "They're just cliff diving, Bella. Recreation. La Push doesn't have a mall, you know."

"Cliff diving?" she repeated. A second figure stepped to the edge, paused, and then very gracefully leaped into space. He fell for what seemed like an eternity, finally cutting smoothly into the dark gray waves below.

"Wow. It's so high. It must be a hundred feet."

"Well, yeah, most of us jump from lower down, that rock that juts out from the cliff about  
halfway." He pointed out his window. "Those guys are insane. Probably showing off how tough they are. I mean, really, it's freezing today. That water can't feel good."

"You jump off the cliff?" she asked, thinking about the "us."

"Sure, sure." He shrugged and grinned. "It's fun. A little scary, kind of a rush."

She looked back at the cliffs, where the third figure was pacing the edge. Her eyes widened, and she smiled. Uh-oh… "Jake, you have to take me cliff diving."

Oh, fabulous. Now she wanted to fling herself off a sea cliff into the dubious landing pad of the ocean. _That _wasn't reckless _at all_. I was starting to believe that she was actually trying to find creative ways to kill herself.

To my great relief, Jacob managed to convince her to forget cliff-diving, at least for the present, by drawing her attention back to their original plans.

"Are we going to try out the bikes or not?" he demanded.

"Okay, okay," she said, and put her seat belt back on and closed the door. The engine was still running, roaring as it idled. They started down the road again.

Jacob started talking about "the La Push gang" and how the leader was starting to freak him out with all the special attention. _Hm…sounds very homo-erotic to me_. These wolves might be more entertaining than I first believed. All in all , not very interesting, though. They're all becoming weird, he doesn't know them anymore, yada yada_, don't worry, young pup, you'll understand soon enough when you join their ranks_.

Soon Bella was perched on the bike, nervously gripping the clutch and trying to remember how everything worked-brakes, clutch, throttle. She didn't get it at first. I guess she finally did, because puppy was backing away. I couldn't let this go on. She was liable to get herself killed, at this rate.

_**This is reckless and childish and idiotic, Bella, **_I projected angrily at her.

She gasped and cried out. The bike jerked forward and tipped over, trapping Bella underneath.

"Bella! Are you hurt?" He went over to lift the bike off her.

_**I told you so.**_

_Oh no_. It looked like she was more obsessed with me than I thought. Hearing my voice in her head had given her insane inspiration: she wanted to do crazy, stupid, reckless things just to hear me tell her not to. This surveillance was turning into a full-time job. No, even worse than that. People working full-time could at least clock out at the end of the day.

"Let's try again," she demanded.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

This time she tried to get the kick-start herself. It was complicated; she had to jump a little to slam  
down on the pedal with enough force, and every time she did that, the bike became unbalanced.

Jacob's hand hovered over the handlebars, ready to catch her if needed.

It took several good tries, and even more poor tries, before the engine caught and roared to  
life. She revved the throttle experimentally. It snarled at the slightest touch. Her smile mirrored puppy-boy's now.

"Easy on the clutch," he reminded her.

This was going too far; I had to do whatever I could to put a stop to it. _**Do you want to kill yourself, then? Is that what this is about?**_ I projected again, in what I hoped was a severe tone. She wasn't about to listen to me, it seemed. _**Go home to Charlie, **_I tried again, hoping that a direct order might get my message across.

"I will." Whether she was answering me, or something the other guy had just said, quickly became irrelevant. At that moment, Bella found the right combination of clutch release and gas, first gear caught, and she surged forward. Once she caught that first burst of speed, she wanted to go even faster. Bella was an adrenaline-junkie; who knew?

She was approaching a curve in the road. She didn't know how to turn; it was different on a motorcycle, and she wasn't even paying attention! _**No, Bella! Watch what you're doing! **_My plea brought her attention to the road ahead, and she applied the brakes, but with too much force. The bike went into a skid, sliding across the pavement with Bella trapped beneath it. That would leave some impressive road rash. She was pretty beaten up, had a sizable head gash, and needed medical attention.

Bella insisted she was fine and wanted to try again.

_WHAT?! You are far from fine and are bleeding from a head wound! That needs to be looked at! Now be a good girl and let Jacob take care of you. _Wait, had I seriously just thought that? Ugh. This girl might just run me ragged before this is all over. I needed to hunt, I needed fresh blood, but I didn't dare take my eyes off her for a second!

Lucky for me, puppy was as adamant as I was about getting her some help, and he drove her into town to get her patched up.

* * *

The next day Bella had yet another inspiration, and this time it was one I agreed with: if putting herself in danger had sparked the "hallucinations" as she called them, might another special familiar place do the same thing as well? She recruited her puppy to help her hike out to the meadow where we had first made love.*

All they really had to go on was what Bella remembered from the last time, so their first day efforts were basically fruitless. So were subsequent searches, unsurprisingly-after all, there were a lot of miles between the meadow and where we parked, and also a lot of miles of forest to be scoured between them.

* * *

Valentine's Day arrived. We were so caught up in our own problems, Bella and I both missed it; or would have, if Puppy-boy hadn't shown up at her house with a small box of …conversation hearts. _How…cute, _I thought despondently. _I never did anything cute. All we had was…I wanted her, and she wanted to jump my bones, so to speak. I'll need to remember this for the future. I haven't given up yet. Not yet._

It was an additional relief when she made a date to go to a movie with a group of friends one night. The meant a couple hours where she couldn't possibly get into trouble; or at least, the possibility of it was drastically increased. If Bella had her way, they would watch some graphic "gore-porn" flick. Amusing. Nice.

Yet, with all of my optimism over making it through this, I couldn't help thinking, in spite of that, _this cannot end well. _Especially with "Jacob" hanging on her every word and wanting so much to please her like-well, like a puppy dog. In this case, the word was surprisingly perfect. As of now, Bella was all but unresponsive to his advances, but that couldn't last forever. She already did practically everything with him in her spare time. She felt close to him, but still just friends. I only hoped that arrangement would last long enough for me to officially return.

_

* * *

*_In the archaic sense of the word, which is relatively chaste compared with the modern, understood definition. Edward can say it like that because technically he's old.

**Three chapters in one, booyah! I really, really want to get to the cliff-jumping. It was surprisingly easy to abridge three chapters into a few thousand words, particularly when Edward really doesn't care about their conversations. Seriously, it's crazy fun to snark at, but how did that piece of literary drivel get published?**

**Once again, I want to know what you think about anything! Especially LOL moments. Really, please tell me if you laughed out loud. That's part of what I'm going for. That and entertainment. I want to know my writing entertains you.**

**Finally, to all those who wish to help me revise: did this seem a little rushed? I'm not sure it flowed very well. Maybe just because I covered a lot of days in a very short time, but I don't know...**


	8. New Monsters

Bella tried to call her new "boyfriend." Old Man Wolf answered and told her he was bed-ridden, or something similar. Anyway, that was the image I got from Bella. She tried numerous times to speak with Jacob, with no success. She began to grow frantic with worry, and even drove out to the res to see him at home. Bella didn't buy the old man's story about her friend being sick. Didn't know why. I guess when you lie to everyone else all the time, you don't expect others to be truthful to you, either.

She finally bugged her father to call his friend Harry and ask him what was going on. His side of the conversation didn't give me much to work with, just a lot of hmms and yeahs.

Finally, Charlie hung up the phone.

"Harry says there's been some trouble with the phone lines, and that's why you haven't been  
able to get through. Billy took Jake to the doc down there, and it looks like he has mono. He's real tired, and Billy said no visitors," he reported.

"No visitors?" she cried.

"Now don't you go making a pest of yourself, Bells. Billy knows what's best for Jake. He'll be up and around soon enough. Be patient."

Bella immediately went upstairs to look up mononucleosis. I sat up on the roof, leaning back on my arms, legs bent in front of me, racking my brains. Something didn't add up here, I agreed with Bella about that. I was no medical specialist, but I was well-aware of the apparent healthy state of everyone in the tribe. The statistics would likely be legendary, if they were made public knowledge. Now a strong, healthy young man from this tribe is laid low by something as common as mono? Nah, I didn't buy it either.

Bella's search revealed that he probably didn't have mono-almost none of his symptoms matched. Except for…except for the fever. Fevers happen for a variety of reasons, but usually they can be boiled down to two reasons. Either the person's brain is working overtime, or their body is. Given what I knew about the puppy…he was about to grow up. In more ways than one. My mission was about to get even more complicated.

A week later, after much moping and feeling very sorry for herself, Bella called Jacob's place.

Someone finally answered.

"Oh, hey, the phone is working again! Hi, Billy. It's Bella. I was just calling to see how Jacob is doing. Is he up for visitors yet? I was thinking about dropping by–"

"I'm sorry, Bella," Billy interrupted, "He's not in."

"Oh. So he's feeling better then?"

"Yeah," Billy hesitated. "Turns out it wasn't mono after all. Just some other virus."

"Oh. So… where is he?"

"He's giving some friends a ride up to Port Angeles–I think they were going to catch a double feature or something. He's gone for the whole day."

"Well, that's a relief. I've been so worried. I'm glad he felt good enough to get out." She was totally lying now.

Jacob was better, but not well enough to call her, so her thoughts went. He was out with friends, and the week apart had not had the same effect on him. _I personally doubt that's it, but I like where your thoughts are going, Bella. Keep following that train of thought._

"Is there anything in particular you wanted?" Billy asked politely.

"No, not really."

"Well, I'll tell him that you called," Billy promised. "Bye, Bella."

"Bye," she replied, but he'd already hung up.

Bella sat around in her own pity party for a while longer before deciding she had to get out of the house. The first person she thought of was J-friend, but that was quickly discarded as she decided that her friend had "crossed over to the dark side." _What does that mean? You deliberately endanger her well-being and expect her to forget in a couple days? I must say, your ego is definitely vampire-worthy, Bella._

She eventually decided to continue looking for "our" meadow on her own, intending to narrow down the options a little more while Jacob was "otherwise occupied." If she only knew.

She found the vehicle-capable trail I'd taken her on before again, and after studying the compass and her map for several minutes, set off on foot in the direction she'd chosen. All the tramping around the woods she had done with Jacob had paid off, it seemed. She found it, and it didn't take her nearly as long to get there as it had taken to walk there with her the first time I showed it to her.

I could all but tangibly feel the hope rush out of her as she realized that although she had found the right place, she was there alone. She had been building up hope and expectation for this moment, the experience, the possible homecoming, and none of it had panned out. Her face and body simultaneously crumpled; she fell to her knees, and bent over. Her breathing became labored; she was trying not to cry again. _Edward, I love you, _she thought in despair.

Suddenly I heard something. I whipped my head to the right. _What are they doing here? This far out…_The implications were not good or reassuring. Maybe I could make this work in my favor. If Bella were to see...

I sent a mental nudge to Bella. _**Was there a sound, over to the right?**_

She turned and looked that direction, toward the trees.

A huge black shape burst out of the trees at a loping run. It was enormous–as tall as a horse, but thicker, much more muscular. The long muzzle grimaced, revealing a line of dagger-like incisors. A fierce howl rolled out from between the teeth, rumbling across the clearing like a prolonged crack of thunder. I climbed a tree as silently as I could.

The "bear." Only, it wasn't a bear at all. Still, this gigantic black monster had to be the creature causing all the alarm. From a distance, anyone would assume it was a bear. What else could be so vast, so powerfully built? I wished Bella were lucky enough to see it from a distance. Instead, it padded silently through the grass a mere ten feet from where she stood.

_**Don't move an inch,**_ I whispered to her mind. I was more than a little concerned that they would overhear me.

She stared at the monstrous creature, her mind boggling as it tried to put a name to it. There was a distinctly canine cast to the shape of it, the way it moved. She could identify the shape, but her mind kept insisting that it must be smaller than it really was; an optical illusion at very least. It paused to look at her, surprised. Obviously no one was supposed to be all the way out here. A low growl rumbled in its throat, and she tried to back away from the sound, stumbling and falling on her butt in the grass.

Then the mammoth wolf was not alone. Flanking it on either side, another two gigantic wolves prowled silently into the meadow. One was a deep gray, the other brown, neither one quite as tall as the first. The gray wolf came through the trees only a few feet from her. Before she could react, two more wolves followed, lined up in a V, like geese flying south. Which meant that the rusty brown monster that appeared from the brush last was close enough for her to touch.

She gasped and jerked back, drawing the attention of all of them. She froze again. I didn't dare send to her now. With this many wolves, it was almost assured at least one would hear me, and I wasn't even sure I could remain concealed with five canine noses sniffing for me, whether they knew I was there or not.

The wolf closest to her, the reddish brown one, turned its head slightly at the sound of her gasp. The wolf's eyes were dark, nearly black. It gazed at her for longer than the others did, considering.

As it stared at her, she suddenly thought of Jacob. She was glad that she'd gone there alone, to this meadow filled with dark monsters. At least Jacob wasn't going to die, too. _Far from it, little lady. _ Then another low growl from the leader caused the russet wolf to whip his head around, back toward the pack that was continuing on their way.

For a few moments all she did was stare after them, then the shock wore off and she collapsed into sobs, nearly hysterical with grief and fear and confusion. I was shocked that I wanted to comfort her at that moment. I wanted to tell her that they wouldn't hurt her, they don't even _like_ human. I guess I just got irritated listening to her. I never knew what to do around a crying girl; I just got all awkward and sounded stupid, so I preferred not to interact with them at all. Yeah; made sense to me.

She managed to stumble back to her truck, still crying and as jumpy as a high-strung cat. Twice she was spooked by harmless wildlife: once some ground bird that she startled from the brush, another time a squirrel that chittered at her from up a tree.

Charlie met her when she finally made it home. "Where have you been?" he thundered.

She hesitated. "I was hiking."

"What happened to going to Jessica's?"

"I didn't feel like Calculus today."

"I thought I asked you to stay out of the forest."

"Yeah, I know. Don't worry, I won't do it again."

He was silent a long moment. "What happened?" Charlie asked, softer this time.

Apparently she was still too shaken up to think of a good lie. "I saw the bear."Her voice was high and shaky. "It's not a bear, though–it's some kind of wolf. And there are five of them. A big black one, and gray, and reddish-brown…"

I heard a clatter as Charlie raced over to Bella. "Are you okay? Tell me what happened."

"They didn't pay any attention to me. But after they were gone, I ran away and I fell down a lot." They were silent for a long time.

"Wolves," he murmured.

"What?"

"The rangers said the tracks were wrong for a bear–but wolves just don't get that big…"

"These were huge."

"How many did you say you saw?"

"Five."

"No more hiking."

"No problem," she promised firmly.

Charlie called the station to report what she'd seen, and Bella snuck upstairs to bed. She curled into a ball and shook until she finally drifted off to sleep.

A couple days later she tried to call Jacob again, but again got no answer. _Aw, she misses her puppy dog. Be patient, Bella. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, after all._

_Then she'll be ready to jump _your _bones when you make your appearance, won't she?_

_Shut up, brain!_

She worried and racked her brains and finally had it-it was Sam Uley. _So close, Bella, and yet so far off the mark. You've just hit the outside ring of the target and claimed yourself a bullseye. _As soon as she reached that conclusion, she became determined to drive out to La Push and confront them both herself. Lucky for me, she made a couple phone calls before she left.

The first was to her father.

"Chief Swan."

"Dad, it's Bella."

"What's wrong?'"

"I'm worried about Jacob."

"Why?" he asked, surprised by the unexpected topic.

"I think… I think something weird is going on down at the reservation. Jacob told me about some strange stuff happening with the other boys his age. Now he's acting the same way and I'm scared."

"What kind of stuff?" He seemed genuinely concerned, but I couldn't say for sure.

"First he was scared, and then he was avoiding me, and now… I'm afraid he's part of that bizarre gang down there, Sam's gang. Sam Uley's gang."

"Sam Uley?"

"Yes."

Charlie's voice was more relaxed when he answered. "I think you've got it wrong, Bells. Sam Uley is a great kid. Well, he's a man now. A good son. You should hear Billy talk about him. He's really doing wonders with the youth on the reservation. He's the one who–" Charlie broke off mid-sentence.

"Dad, it's not like that. Jacob was scared of him," Bella hurriedly interjected.

"Did you talk to Billy about this?" He was trying to calm her now.

"Billy's not concerned."

"Well, Bella, then I'm sure it's okay. Jacob's a kid; he was probably just messing around. I'm sure he's fine. He can't spend every waking minute with you, after all."

"This isn't about me," she insisted. _Bella, you're not fooling anyone. You think everything is about you, and you're only fooling yourself when you insist that it's not. You don't have me, so yes you do want him around every free moment of every day, and quite frankly it's annoying me._

"I don't think you need to worry about this. Let Billy take care of Jacob."

"Charlie…"she whined.

"Bells, I got a lot on my plate right now. Two tourists have gone missing off a trail outside crescent lake." There was an anxious edge to his voice. "This wolf problem is getting out of hand."

"Are you sure that's what happened to them?"

"Afraid so, honey. There was–" He hesitated. "There were tracks again, and… some blood this time."

"Oh!" She imagined that we had come back, but didn't dare think the thought, afraid of the pain that was sure to follow.

"Look, I really have to go. Don't worry about Jake, Bella. I'm sure it's nothing."

"Fine," she said curtly, frustrated. "Bye." She hung up.

The second call was to Jacob's father.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Billy," she growled. She tried to sound more friendly and continued. "Can I talk to Jacob, please?"

"Jake's not here."

"Do you know where he is?"

"He's out with his friends."

"Oh yeah? Anyone I know? Quil?"She was trying to be subtle, and failing miserably.

"No," Billy said slowly. "I don't think he's with Quil today."

She carefully avoided mentioning Sam.

"Embry?"

Billy seemed happier to answer this one. "Yeah, he's with Embry."

That was enough for her. "Well, have him call me when he gets in, all right?"

"Sure, sure. No problem." Click. "See you soon, Billy," she muttered into the dead phone.

Then she jumped in her truck and drove out to the res for answers. I couldn't help but be concerned about her at this point. Those people were as protective of their secrets we Cullens were, and I didn't know how they would react to this girl trying to pry them open. I needed her alive, after all; preferably unharmed, but I wasn't holding out much hope on that.

* * *

She came home in a fury, frustrated with her exchange with Jacob. Guess he finally rejected her. Good.

The phone rang, Charlie and the old wolf yelled at each other through the phone for a while, and Bella eavesdropped and went to bed. The overheard conversation only gave her more to be miserable about. Basically it was the old guy saying Bella was ruining Jacob or some such for stringing him along like she was, and Bella _agonized _over whether to keep doing so, or drop him like a bad habit.

It was a new dream tonight. Rain was falling and she and Jacob were walking soundlessly side by side over dry gravel. But he wasn't "her" Jacob; he was the new, bitter, graceful Jacob. I gave her a mental nudge again. This was so easy, playing with her dreams. As we both watched (me through her), his features started to change. The russet color of his skin leached away, leaving his face pale white like bone. His eyes turned gold, and then crimson, and then back to gold again. His shorn hair twisted in the breeze, turning bronze where the wind touched it. And his face became so beautiful that it broke her heart. She reached for my image, but it took a step away, raising its hands like a shield. And then "Edward" vanished.

I became so absorbed in her dream I almost gave myself away by being visible when puppy-boy showed up. The rustling as he climbed the tree near the house got my attention, and I moved as silently as I could out of sight but near enough to hear what they said. I think my only saving grace was that he had just changed, and wasn't familiar with the nuances of scent yet.

"Bella!" he hissed. "Ouch! Damn it, open the window! OUCH!"

She hurried to the window and shoved the glass out of the way.

"What are you doing?" she gasped.

He was clinging precariously to the top of the spruce that grew in the middle of Charlie's front yard. His weight had bowed the tree toward the house and he now swung–his legs dangling twenty feet above the ground. The thin branches at the tip of the tree scraped against the side of the house again with a grating squeal.

"I'm trying to keep"–he huffed, shifting his weight as the treetop bounced him–"my promise!"

_What's this? What promise?_

"When did you ever promise to kill yourself falling out of Charlie's tree?" _No, wait! That's a promise I can get behind._

He snorted, unamused, swinging his legs to improve his balance. "Get out of the way," he  
ordered.

"What?"

With a grunt, he launched himself toward the open window. He landed safe and sound inside, unfortunately.

"Get out!" she hissed angrily.

"No," he protested. "I came to apologize."

"I don't accept!" _Yeah, she doesn't accept! So go away already! _She tried to push him out, but he was immovable. Bella noticed then that he was topless, and in spite of that the chill air didn't make him cold. She chalked it up to still being feverish. Then all the stress of the last couple days caught up to her, and she abruptly collapsed.

Jacob swooped over and caught her just before she hit the floor. "Bella? Hey, are you okay?" he asked.

"Why in the world would I be okay, Jacob?"

He paused. "Right," he agreed, and took a deep breath. "Crap. Well… I–I'm so sorry, Bella." The apology seemed sincere, (damn it) but his voice was tinged with anger.

"Why did you come here? I don't want apologies from you, Jake."

"I know," he whispered. "But I couldn't leave things the way I did this afternoon. That was horrible. I'm sorry." Fabulous. This was going to be a make-up session. _You two keep it G-rated, okay?_

She sighed. "I don't understand anything."

"I know. I want to explain–" He broke off suddenly, almost like something had cut off his air. Then he sucked in a deep breath. "But I can't explain," he said, still angry. "I wish I could." Interesting. It seemed there was some binding spell on him or something similar.

She must have been speaking through her pillow, because her next utterance was muffled. "Why?"

Silence.

"What's wrong?" she asked. Whatever she was speaking through was removed now.

He exhaled heavily. "I can't do it," he muttered, frustrated.

"Do what?"

He ignored my question. "Look, Bella, haven't you ever had a secret that you couldn't tell anyone? Something you felt like you had to keep from Charlie, from your mom… ?" he pressed.

"Something you won't even talk about with me? Not even now?"

"Can you understand that I might be in the same kind of… situation?" He was struggling again, seeming to fight for the right words. "Sometimes, loyalty gets in the way of what you want to do. Sometimes, it's not your secret to tell."

Bella immediately thought of us-the Cullens, and how she'd promised to keep our nature secret. Poor oblivious idiot didn't realize he wasn't speaking of us at all.

"I don't know why you came here, Jacob, if you were just going to give me riddles instead of answers."

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "This is so frustrating."

Silence.

"The part that kills me," he said abruptly, "is that you already know. I already told you everything!"

"What are you talking about?" _He's a werewolf, Bella._

He sucked in a startled breath, and then said in one single burst, "I think I see a way to make this work out–because you know this, Bella! I can't tell you, but if you guessed it! That would let me right off the hook!"

"You want me to guess? Guess what?"

"My secret! You can do it–you know the answer!" _No, she doesn't . She's dumb as a doornail. Haven't you figured that out yet? I debated getting her a book of connect-the-dots pictures for her birthday. I thought it would be intellectually challenging for her._

He was there for at least half an hour, trying to get her to say the magic words-"_You're a werewolf,_" and after much verbal dancing-around on Jacob's side, and more intellectual dimness on the part of Bella, he gave her an awkward farewell and left. Just before he did, though, he caught her in a fierce, desperate embrace. I almost audibly growled at that. _Now _he was becoming a nuisance.

Bella still didn't know what he was talking about. Does depression make a person stupid? He just did everything but sprout fur on the spot and tell her right out, and she didn't get it.

Eventually Bella fell asleep again, and had another dream. I got my claws into this one, mostly out of frustration. The location was the forest around La Push–near the beach there. Bella hurried forward, following the faint sound of waves in the distance.

And then Jacob was there. He grabbed her hand, pulling her back toward the blackest part of the forest.

"Jacob, what's wrong?" she asked. His face was the frightened face of a boy, and his hair was swept back into a ponytail on the nape of his neck. He yanked with all his strength, but she resisted. "Run, Bella, you have to run!" he whispered, terrified.

This was the dream she'd had the night after she walked with Jacob on the beach, the first night she found that I was a vampire.

Jacob dropped her hand and yelped. Shaking and twitching, he fell to the ground. "Jacob!" she screamed, but he was gone. In his place was an enormous, red-brown wolf with dark, intelligent eyes, courtesy of yours truly.

She woke up the next morning screaming, startling me so much I nearly fell off the roof. Talk about ungraceful. Then she remembered everything she and puppy-boy had talked about that day at the beach, when he told her the Cullens were vampires, and suggested that the tribe were werewolves. Everything made sense to her now. Her first impulse was to go to the reservation and talk to Jacob about it.

When she went downstairs her father told her that there had been another attack-the wolves were apparently stepping up the mauling. It wasn't the wolves, and it wasn't the Cullens, either. Since we officially moved out some other roving vampires had moved in, probably temporarily. The wolves were going after them, and that's where the tracks came from. Not that either of them could have known that.

Bella began thinking about her friend. I interjected with compelling reasons to put her wolf friend aside.

_Jacob is my best friend._

_**But is he a monster too? A real one? A bad one?**_

_Aren't they like the Cullens?_

_**Remember all those attacks? People. Wolf tracks. Cullens don't hunt people, remember?**_

_**Obviously the werewolves chose a different path. ****That last was expressed by both of us at the same time, and was actually the truth. What Bella didn't know was that the "paths" she was imagining were actually reversed. And I didn't intend to enlighten her about that, though she would eventually find out on her own, if she kept company with them much longer.**_

_**Can you bear to be with a cold-blooded killer? **_It didn't matter that the Cullens actually were, and the wolves in fact were not; what mattered was that Bella didn't know that. If I could keep her uncertain and off-balance, she would be with me again when I returned.

* * *

**Yeah, totally ignored the part where Laurent appears, because that whole scene was unnecessary and stupid, serving only to give Bella something else to worry about (that she has absolutely no control over). [They actually have support groups for people like her-codependents.] Oh yeah, it also serves as crappy "foreshadowing" for the "conflict" in the following book, and I have enough to work with here, so I ignored him as the lazy plot device his appearance ultimately was. Just explaining my process, folks.**

**Tell me what you think. My inquiring mind wants to know! Oh, and next chapter, if it goes as anticipated, is the cliff! HURRAY!!**


	9. Loss

Bella drove down the highway that led to the La Push reservation. She was going to warn Jacob that the authorities were on to them, to stop them from killing hapless tourists. Even though she was convinced that he and his cohorts were malicious killers, she still felt like she needed to protect him.

_Bella, after me, he is the _last_ person who needs your protection, and for similar reasons. You really think a band of humans is going to wipe them out? Worst case, they leave for a while to protect the others on the res. _

When she came back, her first thoughts were of Jacob–still wearing just the same black cut-off sweats he'd worn last night–stretched diagonally across the double bed that took up all of his room but a few inches around the edges. Even on a slant, it wasn't long enough; his feet hung off the one end and his head off the other. He was fast asleep, snoring lightly with his mouth hanging open. _Ugh, how attractive. After seeing him like this, you still want to hang with him, Bella?_

She and I had a little discussion when she got back. She didn't know it was two-sided; she assumed she was just having second thoughts or something.

_**You can't continue your relationship with him. Remember what he told you? He's a werewolf, a monster.**_

_Are vampires any less monsters? _she answered.

_**The vampires you're acquainted with don't eat humans. **__As far as you know, anyway._

_Neither do the wolves. _A scene from earlier that day flashed through her mind, of her throwing her arms around Jacob, after he told her the wolves weren't the killers.

_**They're still dangerous to be around. They're vicious animals.**_

_They're enemies to vampires._

_**See? That's why you should stay away. Vampires and werewolves don't mix. He will be a serious obstacle to being together with Edward. Besides, Jacob himself said that he almost lost control around you last night, that you were in terrible danger. That's a good indicator that you should give up on him.**_

_Jasper really _did_ lose control, and I didn't give up on the Cullens._

Damn. She had an answer for everything.

_**They don't respect you. **_I dug out her confrontation with the rest of the pack. "Why can't you just follow the rules, Jacob?" one yelled, throwing his arms in the air. "What the hell are you thinking? Is she more important than everything–than the whole tribe? Than the people getting killed?"

"She can help," Jacob said quietly.

"Help!" the angry boy shouted. "Oh, that's likely! I'm sure the leech-lover is just dying to help us out!"

_Jacob stood up for me, said he would protect me._

_**Do you trust him more than…?**_

_No! He is my friend though, and the only one I can lean on right now._

_**At least you can count on only two outcomes from hanging with vampires. If you're with the Cullens or Denali folk, you're safe, and with any others, you get a relatively quick death. You hang with the wolves, you get scarred and disfigured for life. **_I ruthlessly brought out an image of Emily and forced Bella to consider it. The right side of Emily's face was scarred from hairline to chin by three thick, red lines, vivid in color though they were long healed. One line pulled down the corner of her dark, almond-shaped right eye, another twisted the right side of her mouth into a permanent grimace.

_But there's so much love there, too. _She projected her own image of Sam kissing Emily, disregarding her horrible scars, even paying special attention to them. That didn't seem romantic to me at all. In her situation, that could only serve to remind me of what had been done to me. Did this mean her arguments were getting weaker? _Besides_,_ to each other,_ _they're brothers._

_**That's creepy.**_

_No, it's kind of sweet._

_**No, think about it, girl. The Cullens are all paired up with each other, partly out of convenience and partly because none of us wants to be completely alone. That's why they all live together and move around with each other all the time. **_That wasn't entirely true, but it worked for this reasoning, and Bella didn't know any different. _**Who are the wolves pairing up with? You think they're content just to have their "brothers" around them all the time? You think Sam is the only one Emily is "with"? You think-**_

_Stop it! _She yelled. In her own head. Then she shied away from thinking about that. Oh, she didn't want to because she was thinking naughty thoughts about her boy-wait, that was wrong! I couldn't let her keep doing that! She was supposed to be all about _me_! Even if it brought her pain. Even if she wound up curled up in a fetal position when she finally got to sleep, I wanted her thinking about me. My future counted on it.

_**Remember the Cullens? Remember…? **_Here I inserted an image of myself, and even fought with her for several minutes to keep it in the forefront of her mind.

She gasped and clutched at her sides. A whimper came out, and then quiet sobs as she slowly drifted off to sleep.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

* * *

By the time spring break arrived, Bella had developed a pattern, mostly involving meeting Jacob at the reservation. This was not going well for me. True, she didn't actually spend much time with him, what with him off doing "wolfy" stuff all the time, but the fact that she always went there was a bad sign.

She still went to work, though, and at least I could keep a cursory watch on her there. Jacob followed her on his bike to make sure she arrived safely–and Mike noticed.

"Are you dating that kid from La Push? The sophomore?" He asked, resentment in his tone.

She paused. "Not in the technical sense of the word. I do spend most of my time with Jacob,  
though. He's my best friend."

"Don't kid yourself, Bella. The guy's head over heels for you."

"I know," she sighed. "Life is complicated."

"And girls are cruel," Mike said under his breath. _Hey, now, Mike, that's not a very nice thing to say. It's not true either. Now, if you were to say "Bella Swan is cruel," I would not argue with you. She's a cold-hearted bitch, it's true._

She supposed that was an easy assumption to make, too. Easy to be arrogant to a guy crushing on you, I guess. Soooo glad I'm not in his shoes. Not crushing on her, anyway. Dependent? Oh yeah, though that was due to my own foolishness. And scared. Getting more scared by the day.

She came home one night with a horrifying plan for the next morning: she and Jacob were planning to go cliff diving. _Oh, no. No way this could end up well._

She awoke the next morning and waited expectantly for Jacob to meet her at the house. He didn't come, and I was elated. Maybe he'd realized what a foolhardy venture that would be, as clumsy as Bella apparently was. She would find a way to smash herself on the rocks, no matter how hard she ran or jumped, I was sure of it.

So the stupid girl decided to go to lover boy instead. She couldn't wait to fling herself off a precipice, it seemed.

She came out again shortly, and traveled back to the cliffs where they first saw the boys jumping into the ocean. A storm was brewing far out to sea as she got out and started walking along the shore.

The waves picked up as she paced, beginning to crash against the rocks, but there was still no wind. Everything swirled around her, but it was perfectly still where she stood. Maybe I was just that focused on her. The air had a faint electric charge–I could feel the static in the air.

Farther out, the waves were angrier than they were along the shore. I could see the evidence of their battering against the line of the cliffs, spraying big white clouds of sea foam into the sky. There was still no movement in the air, though the clouds roiled more quickly now. It was eerie looking–like the clouds were moving by their own will. She shivered, and I hoped she was having second thoughts.

The cliffs were a black knife edge against the livid sky. Staring at them, Bella remembered the  
day Jacob had told her about Sam and his "gang." She thought of the boys–the werewolves–throwing themselves into the empty air. The image of the falling, spiraling figures was still vivid in her mind. She imagined the utter freedom of the fall… imagined the way my voice would have sounded in her head–furious, velvet, perfect (_thank you_)…

Rain started falling as she walked to the edge of the cliff and leaned over to look down.

_**Bella.**_

She smiled.

_Yes?_ She didn't answer out loud, and for a moment I was startled. Had she figured out what I was doing? No, she still thought I was a hallucination. She had just decided to play along. _You wanted me to be human. Well, watch me._

_**Please. For me.**_

_But you won't stay with me any other way._

_**Please. **_I knew I was pleading now, but there was really nothing I could do beyond that.

She took a few steps back to get a running start.

_**No, Bella! **_I put every ounce of anger I could into the sending, hoping that might divert her, or at least overwhelm her enough to make her unconscious or something. No such luck.

She smiled and raised her arms straight out, as if she were going to dive. She leaned forward, crouching to get more spring, and ran toward the cliff. The pelting of her shoes against the rocky cliff seemed to me to be counting down the remaining time of any freedom I may have once possessed.

She flung herself outward off the cliff.

She screamed on the way down-or I did, I wasn't certain. She hit the water, and I was sure it was over.

Wait, the fall didn't kill her! I felt hope surge up from some place inside me.

Then the current caught her. Connecting with her senses made me feel dizzy as she was tossed about by the angry waters. She wasn't strong enough to fight ocean currents. She was drowning.

_**Keep swimming!**_ I begged urgently.

_Where?_ All she could see was the darkness. There was no place for her to swim to.

_**Stop that! **_I ordered_**. Don't you dare give up!**_

The cold of the water was numbing her arms and legs. But she listened. She continued reaching with her arms, kicked her legs harder, though every second she was facing a new direction. It couldn't be doing any good.

_What's the point?_

_**Fight! **_I yelled_**. Damn it, Bella, keep fighting.**_

_Why?_

In that instant she saw me. I couldn't explain it, and I really didn't know how. Maybe it was because she was near death, but she saw me watching her. It wasn't her imagination; it might have been some untapped ability she already possessed, but I could tell that she saw me truly. In her mind I was standing exactly where I was for real-out on the rocks of the sea cliff. She had never seen me there, and probably couldn't have dredged the image from her imagination.

However she saw me, it soon became a moot point when I sensed that she was ready to let go, to just let the ocean have her.

_**No, Bella! No!**_

Impact. The waves crashed her up against a rock, dazing her. She drifted then, sinking slowly to the ocean floor.

_Goodbye, I love you_, she thought to my image, and gave herself up to the sea.

And that was when my world came to an abrupt, halting end.

* * *

"Guess what, Edward?" Carlisle! He was suddenly behind me. Where did he come from? And how did he always _do_ that? He whispered the next words triumphantly in my ear, speaking slowly and enunciating with devastating clarity. "You lose."

"No," I whispered. "She's not dead, she could still-" We heard another splash that didn't fit in with the rhythm of the waves. "S-see? She's being rescued already, you can't-"

"Poor Edward." Alice! She was standing behind and to the right of us. "It looks like this was the scene of my vision after all." She had that gleam in her eyes again. She was in her manic/evil phase; she was beautiful and terrifying.

"What are you doing here?" I asked her.

"Watching the show. How do you think Carlisle knew where to be?"

I stared incredulously at her. "You told him. You _saw_ this would happen and you told him." I wanted to cry.

"It was too delicious to keep to myself." She flashed a pointy-toothed grin.

"As for you, Edward," Carlisle said, pressing the length of his body against the back of mine, "I have many amusing plans for us-well, amusing to me, anyway." And he chuckled. Shit. Carlisle grasped my upper arms, pulling me tighter against him. "I've looked forward to this," he murmured. A myriad of images flowed past my mind's eye, one after the other: me, shackled to a stone wall, facing the room, then in the same position facing the wall, playing sick and twisted games like "pin the tail on Edward's…donkey" (which was painted on my ass, courtesy of Carlisle's sense of humor); or more overtly sexual images, such as one that featured me bent forward over Carlisle's desk-_oh! Oh, seriously? No, oh, fuck no! _Each was more humiliating and terrifying than the last, and _Oh shiii—fuck. Shitfuck. He intends to get everyone in on this. He's even scheming to get Esme to play along!_

"Now Edward, I thought we'd start with-"

I was miles away almost before I'd consciously decided to start running.

* * *

I ran somewhat mindlessly for maybe an hour before I realized I had to make a plan. If I just ran like this, I would be easy to track down. I would have to disappear, and to do that I would need a stash of cold hard cash. I remember talking about this with Emmett and Jasper once; none of us were planning to actually do it at the time, it was just a mental exercise: in this day and age, what would it take to disappear from the radar? One thing we all agreed on was the need for a supply of cash; that way, there would be no paper trail and authorities couldn't track you through credit or debit transactions.

I traveled to the nearest city and systematically withdrew as much cash as was allowed from the ATMs of every bank in town-multiple ATMs, when allowed. I was on the last bank when I saw those fateful words: **Invalid transaction.** I tried again. The message was different this time**: Invalid card. Please try again.** Two possibilities immediately came to mind:

I had withdrawn the limit of ATM transaction cash available to me from our accounts.

Carlisle had closed the accounts, or at least cancelled my card.

It might have been the first, but I couldn't take that chance, because if it was the second, it meant that Carlisle could potentially find out where I was now. If he could, he had probably already figured it out. I had to assume he was already on his way.

I ran on to Chicago. There was a large airport there, where I counted on getting lost in the crowd until I could board a flight out to somewhere else in the country. That would at least temporarily confuse my scent trail and, I hoped, give me some breathing room, so to speak.

When I got to the airport, I scoured the destination charts, looking for a promising flight to a rural location where I could hide out for a month, or a week, or even a couple days, Carlisle-free.

I felt a touch of nostalgia as my gaze lit on one to the far north, a flight with a connection in Los Angeles. I hurried to the nearest ticket counter.

"Excuse me. Is there still a seat available for flight 1485?"

"The one to Anchorage? Let me check." She patiently tapped some information into her computer and read the information it gave her. "It looks like there are some seats still available. The flight leaves in twenty minutes." She looked around me, perhaps for my absent luggage. "Are you…sure this is the flight you want? Will you be ready by then?"

"Sure. All I have to do is get my luggage out of the airport locker."

"Oh. Ok." Satisfied by my answer, she smiled and continued. "How do you intend to pay?"

"Cash." I took out a small stack of Benjamins.

"Th-the whole ticket? That's a little irregular, but-"

"I'm from Canada. Traveling. Cash is just easier to use, since I don't like keeping track of checks." I gave her my most winning smile, and she bought it. Damn it, she'd remember me. With any luck, she would be on break or something when Carlisle came a-calling.

Several uncomfortable hours of flight and about one more on foot later, I arrived at my destination. I paused uncertainly, took a deep breath, and knocked on the door.

The door opened. The person at the door stared for a moment. "Edward?"

I smiled sheepishly. "Hello, Tanya."

* * *

**That's all for this chapter! It was a little shorter than last time, so here's an overview of Renie's Creative Process in Writing the Darkward Tale.**

**1. Read summary/summaries of content for next chapter from the Twilight lexicon website.**

**2. Determine how much Edward sees/know/experiences.**

**3. Read the chapter from my online full-text source.**

**4. Rewrite chapter from Edward's POV.**

**5. Copy-Pasta where appropriate to keep basic canon intact.**

**6. Proofread for errors and revisions.**

**7. Wait overnight, particularly if there was a section I was uncertain about.**

**8. Proofread again for revision purposes.**

**9. Post.**

**And that's why it takes as long as it does!**


	10. Making Love and Getting out of Bondage

**WARNING!! This chapter contains graphic sexual (and sensual) imagery, and is not work or school safe. Well, maybe if you work in the right place, but…**

"Edward!" Tanya squealed. "You're back! I knew you'd come back to me." She reached out, took my hand, and yanked me inside. "C'mere, you!"

"Yagh!" Not the most intelligent I could have said, but she took me completely by surprise. She pulled me quickly through the house. I was only able to get out a hurried "hello" to everyone we passed. She pulled me into her bedroom and turned to close the door. I turned to face her, but she pushed me down onto her bed. I landed sprawled out and more than a little bewildered, on a pile of throw pillows and soft blankets. Tanya apparently lounged around here a lot.

She looked down at my prone figure with a predatory gleam in her eyes. "Take 'em off."

I stared incredulously at her. "Pardon?"

"Your pants. Take them off."

At this point I was still pretty addled. "Um, why?"

"Because I've wanted to fuck your brains out for a long time now, and because if you don't, in three seconds I will shred them off you with or without your consent."

Her declarative statement sent a thrill through me, part fear and part lusty excitement. I could tell she was serious, so I quickly squirmed out of my khakis. By then she'd removed her shirt, and was unfastening her own pants, so I finished the job of undressing, drawing my shirt over my head. When we were both bared, she smiled mischievously down at me.

"Let's see if you have as much fire in you as your red hair suggests, tiger."

By then I was all too ready to play. "Only one way to find out." I beckoned her down to me with one finger. "Bring it on, honey."

She licked her lips provocatively and said, "Love to. Rawr!" before pouncing on me.

She quickly straddled my hips and lowered herself onto my erect cock. She took only about an inch or two inside her before clenching her muscles and raising herself up again. Let me tell you, a lamia can _really_ clench. I only barely stifled a moan of pleasure just from that brief contact. She lowered herself again, taking me deeper this time, but still not all, before moving up again as before, teasing me. Next time she came down on me I was ready for her. When she was about to raise herself up again, I grabbed her hips and pulled her down to me, thrusting my hips up at the same time. Her eyes widened and she cried out in surprise, then her expression settled into a smile as she looked down at my face.

"Mmm, I think Edward's getting a little impatient."

"I _know_ he is. I thought you were serious about this. Was I wrong?"

"Just see if you can keep up with me," she challenged, just before kicking up the pace.

There was nothing particularly romantic or loving about our "love-making." Truth be told, I think the surest sign of "success" would have been for one or both of us to suffer a broken pelvis. It certainly seemed likely, with the force of our coupling. One thing I did know: this was something both of us needed.

When some of the after-glow of rough, satisfying sex had worn off, I made an uncomfortable discovery. Sometime during our furious activity, Tanya had managed to cuff me to the headboard's metal bar. With fuzzy pink handcuffs.

I pulled lightly against them. "Tanya. Seriously?"

"What? I thought you liked bondage play. Isn't this all right?"

"I can give you nine hundred ninety-nine reasons why this isn't 'all right,' starting with 'they're pink and fuzzy' and ending with 'they're binding me to _your_ headboard.'"

"Edward, I've fantasized about having you to myself ever since you turned me down so long ago. I've only built on those fantasies since then, and even added an additional element-well, an additional person, really. Come in, Lovey!" she called toward the door.

The door opened, and a vampire I didn't recognize came through it. He was tall, with soft, dirty blond hair, and his eyes had a greenish tinge to them that I couldn't help but notice. He was slim and his body seemed composed of lean muscle. I didn't go for men, but I still recognized that he was probably very attractive.

"Edward, this is my new beau, Victor," she said, just as if this was a formal introduction between equals, and I really wasn't cuffed to the headboard with fuzzy pink bracelets. "And Victor, this is Edward, the boy I was telling you about before."

He nodded in my direction, and I half-expected him to put out his hand for a handshake. That was absurd, of course, for there was no way I could meet that handshake, but I expected it nonetheless, so bizarre was this meeting.

"Victor here became much more fun when he was turned," Tanya continued, apparently oblivious to my unease. "He was already bisexual—that hasn't changed—and a _very_ considerate lover—which also hasn't changed."

"That's nice and all, and it's so nice to meet you, Victor, but how can he be more fun if he hasn't changed?"

"Oh, but he did change—into a nymphomaniac." Now I eyed him more closely than before. Tanya caught my look. "That's right. He will do anything with anyone willing, barring certain kinks—or anyone he can _convince_ is willing." Uh-oh. I gulped, and I was pretty sure it was audible. I was obviously one of those who would need "convincing."

"Happy birthday, darling," Tanya said, and kissed Victor full on the mouth. I was liking this less and less with every passing second. "Shall we begin?"

That was all I needed to hear. I pulled myself closer to the headboard. "This has been fun, Tanya, but I really should go do…something, that needs to be done, somewhere far away from here." I pulled my arms apart, intending to snap the play cuffs. They didn't snap, and I froze. I pulled harder. Nothing. My fear increased. "Tanya, what are these made of?"

She smiled, showing her pointy pearly whites. "Reinforced steel and titanium. Not enough to hold a vampire under normal circumstances, but effective when the person shackled has limited leverage, like you right now."

I was beyond frightened now, quickly moving to the realm of the terrified. This was _not_ how I imagined this day going. At all.

"Why don't you just relax, Edward?" Victor asked, walking over to stand beside the head of the bed. "I promise you'll enjoy what I'm going to do to you."

I glared up at him. "You know what I would enjoy? Being let out of these cuffs, that's what I would enjoy."

He ran the back of his hand down the side of my face, and I flinched away. "Poor Edward. You've had a male lover before, haven't you? But I suspect he wasn't really a lover," he continued, sitting beside me on the bed. "No, I imagine all he was interested in was either his own pleasure—and yours be damned—or he was using sex as a way to dominate you. I'm right, aren't I?"

My jaw dropped open. My god. He was exactly right. That was my relationship with Carlisle, in a nutshell.

He chuckled at my expression. "My insight isn't as perceptive as all that; I see this all the time, it's not unique to vampire relationships. In fact, I've met some men who were pretty well destroyed by dominating partners. I like helping them restore their faith in sex. You know why? Because I love it. To me, sex is something to be enjoyed by both partners. Otherwise, what's the point?"

"Fascinating sermon. Can I go now?"

"Go? But we just started."

"No, actually, I _finished_ about five minutes ago, and I'm ready to leave now."

"But we haven't had our fun yet."

"What you propose does not sound like fun to me."

He smiled. "Ooh, I love a challenge. I'm gonna have you begging for me to fuck you by the time we're done." With that, he began working me over, figuratively _and_ literally. He started kissing my face, my eyelids, cheeks, even the corner of my mouth, but never full on the lips, for which I was grateful. His hands lightly stroked my arms, which made the cuffs clink against the metal of the headboard, so I was reminded again of my confinement. Victor caressed his way down my body, circling, stroking, and kneading the muscles of my arms and legs. When he really began massaging them, I started to relax; I couldn't stay tense under the expert manipulation of his agile hands.

Presently his touch seemed lighter and softer; his hands fairly glided over my skin. He had applied scented body oil and was rubbing it all over my body. Its heady vanilla scent wafted up to me, relaxing me with its intoxicating aroma. I sighed and let my body relax while a barely-perceptible wave of aesthetic pleasure washed over me.

_**There we go, **_I heard in my head_._ _**This isn't bad at all, is it? **_I had to admit, it felt…_good._ Not like with Carlisle _at all. _A whisper of warning flitted through my thoughts when I thought of Carlisle, but I quickly shushed it. There was no reason to bring him into this, so I banished him to the corner of my mind. He was quickly forgotten as Victor continued his sensual ministrations.

His clever hands searched out and found all the secret pleasure spots on my body; some of them even _I _didn't know about. Victor patiently and skillfully brought my senses to a fever pitch, until I could feel the pleasure ebbing and flowing over and through me, never peaking, but never crashing either. When he touched me, I twitched. When he stroked my face or my hip, I leaned into the caress.

Then Victor started following his hands with his mouth and tongue, and when he closed over one of my nipples I arched my back instinctively at the sudden surge of pleasure centered on that spot. He ran his tongue down my chest and I shivered. He dipped his tongue into my navel and I gasped as my stomach contracted. He slid his body along mine, and I strained to meet him chest-to-chest, thigh-to-thigh. It was a little confusing and disconcerting. Victor did the same thing Carlisle had done, but my reactions to the two were completely different, because Victor's intent was different. Carlisle wanted to drive me crazy and enraged; Victor was trying to drive me mad with desire.

I was near thrashing now, lost in the throes of pure love-making, unsure whether I wanted him to stop or continue. Then he stopped.

I opened my eyes abruptly to catch him staring at me intently. "Do you want to continue, Edward?" he asked. "Just so you're under no illusions, 'to continue' means that I will start fucking you. So, do you want me to continue? It's still up to you, I just gave you the prequel."

I struggled with my desires. On the one hand, I _knew_ I didn't like making love with a man. On the other hand, I didn't want this to end. Victor saw my indecision, and drew his finger up the inside of my thigh. That decided me, as I took two deep breaths and nodded my head.

"Then you know what you have to do. I told you in the beginning I would have you begging. Right now you're only capitulating to me. You want me to continue? You have to _beg_."

I wanted to. I really did, but I just couldn't. Carlisle had taught me never to beg for anything or show weakness if it could be avoided. Victor noticed my dilemma, and climbed over me, hovering over my body and whispering in my ear. "It's ok, Edward. It's ok, I understand. Tell you what, you can whisper it to me, as quiet as you want. I'll hear you, I promise."

It had to be okay. I wanted it to be okay. I gritted my teeth and whispered, "Please…please…fuck me, Victor."

He smiled, and it was encouraging. "Good for you, Edward."

With no further hesitation he lifted my legs up by the knees and thrust his dick into me. I cried out softly from the sudden intrusion. He felt little resistance because of all the oil he'd applied earlier, and I quickly forgot any pain when Victor began stroking me again, drawing my attention back to his hands and what he could do with them.

He started moving his hips, so he moved now shallower, now deeper into me. The combination of that feeling and Victor's magic hands was almost too much for me. He was getting close to orgasm too, but somehow he managed to keep us both teetering on the edge, so close but no farther, halting his movement when either he or I came close, until I was fairly whimpering with the need to finish, to let go.

Finally Victor gasped out, "Tanya-now!"

At his prompting-_where had she come from, anyway?- _she appeared beside us, bent down, and slid her lips around my cock, sucking hard enough to undo me, in the state I was already in. I went into one of the most intense-if not _the_ most intense-orgasms I've ever had. _Ever_. I yelled once-twice-three times as I arched my back far enough that I was no longer touching the bed at all. At the same time I vaguely noticed Victor as he grunted his own orgasm. Tanya sat back giggling at our reactions.

After I had come back to my senses, Tanya said smugly, "Victor does tend to have that effect on people."

"Do you 'share' often?" I asked her.

"Only when she thinks she'll enjoy it," Victor answered.

I chuckled at that. "Right. Okay, now that we've all had our fun, how about letting me out of these?" I rattled the cuffs against the bar.

"No, I don't think I will." Tanya had that predatory gleam in her eyes again.

I froze. "Why?"

"There's one more show I want to see first."

I hauled myself up to a seated position. "What's that?"

She giggled. "The one where Carlisle comes in here and finds his Edward all chained up and gift-wrapped just for him."

I jerked at my restraints again. "Carlisle? He's coming here? How did he know where I was?"

"Easy. He had called earlier, to tell us he was looking for you, and asked to speak to me personally, since I had a bit of a grudge. I called him and told him you were here, while Victor worked his magic on you."

"What?! How could you do that to me? Do you have any idea what he'll do to me?"

"Well, I _am_ pretty pissed off at you that you rejected me, and besides, Carlisle promised I could watch." Her eyes widened with anticipation.

"NO! Agh, damn it, no!"

"Besides, where would you go, anyway, even if you got free?"

"I can tell you where I _wouldn't_ go-Antarctica." I wouldn't give her anything; I could play mind games too. "With my luck, I'd get attacked by penguins, and just after managing to fight them off, be blind-sided by a polar bear."

Tanya laughed. "Oh, Edward, sometimes you have the best sense of humor. Polar bears don't live in Antarctica."

"I know. With my luck, the ice would randomly spawn one just to take me out while the penguins distracted me."

"You're so cute when you're putting on a brave front." She came over and kissed my forehead. "Happy waiting." She and Victor left the room.

For a moment I wanted to sink into some kind of pit of despair. It seemed there was no getting out of this. Then I remembered Bella, and how she went practically catatonic over me leaving her. I didn't want that to happen to me. I thought that if you're going to live forever, you ought to try to _live_. That thought renewed my determination to get out of the fix I'd found myself in. I pulled at the cuffs, trying to pull them apart. I couldn't get the leverage, and finally I got frustrated and just tried yanking the headboard out from the wall.

I froze. There was a sound I hadn't expected.

I looked up at the metal bar of the headboard, and saw a dent in the metal. It wasn't made of the same stuff as the cuffs. I looked to both sides, and noticed that I had managed to bend the bar inward as well. The bar was weaker than the cuffs were! I could, possibly, break the metal of the bar holding me here. Maybe I could get out of this after all.

I began to pull against the bar harder, and heard the satisfying whine of the metal bending much farther than it was accustomed to being bent. I patiently worked it in and out, twisting and untwisting, trying to warm up the metal to make it more pliable. I thought I had identified the weakest point when I heard the sound I had been listening for: that of a knock on the door.

Oh shit, Carlisle was here.

I worked harder than before, desperately trying to break free before Carlisle found me here, bound and naked, no less.

I could hear their muffled speech through the door.

"Hello, Tanya. I hear you have something for me?"

"Yep. Right this way." They started walking down the hallway toward her room.

I pulled as hard as I could-once. Nope. Twice-not quite. Third time was the charm. The metal bar split enough for me to thread the cuffs through. I was still bound, but at least I could leave the vicinity.

Tanya and Carlisle were getting closer. I grabbed my discarded khakis-they had all my cash in them-and jumped through the window into the Alaskan air, seconds ahead of Carlisle, who I assumed rushed to open the door as soon as he heard the glass shatter.

I was off and running again, and lucky for me Carlisle didn't feel like chasing me in such an undignified way. I had already accepted that dignity was lost to me for the moment, so I didn't much care beyond knowing that, for the time being, I had escaped.

He still managed to get in the last word, always with that pleasant smile on his face. "You can't run forever, Edward," he called out. "We've only just begun."

I was terrified he was right. I had, however, abruptly come up with at least a temporary solution: a place Carlisle wouldn't think to look for me. The last place he would probably expect to find me, given my current crisis.

I would go to the Cullen's private island, our only permanent "home base." My next destination was South America.

* * *

**Wow. That was really, really heavy, but I think it worked. This story needed a bit of levity, after all that seriousness. There goes my teen rating.**

**In case you were wondering, this was what I knew would happen when I started writing this chapter:**

**1. Edward and Tanya would briefly get back together.**

**2. Tanya would have a new guy.**

**3. Tanya would betray Edward to Carlisle.**

**Obviously, all three of those events happened. Also, Edward was going to whine about his situation, and Tanya would get tired of it, and that's why she would call Carlisle. I couldn't make that work, so I decided to focus on Tanya's new friend. I don't know where Victor came from, but I thought him up and I liked the idea of him so much I decided to use him as Tanya's new boyfriend. **

**I'm not really sure why I decided on the tone that I did, except that maybe my concept of vampires as overtly sexual people was suffering in this story so far, so I kind of expressed it all in one go. What did you think? Did it seem to work? Flow well enough with the story? Constructive criticism is always welcome.**

**Send a review or PM if you want a Victor of your own! I think I might keep a running tally on my profile. Or would it work better as a poll?**

**On an unrelated note, I'm starting to think I have a fetish for light bondage. Edward seems to wind up tied up a lot…**


	11. Homecoming

I managed to catch a flight from Manitoba to Brazil, after traveling cross-country through Canada. I should have been more alert, but I only had one thing on my mind: _Get away from Carlisle, get faaar away. _Have you ever tangled with a moose? I never had, until this little adventure. It all worked out, though. I was hungry anyway. And vampires heal pretty quickly.

Anyway, lucky for me, none of our private staff seemed aware of my current estranged state, so it was easy going once I got to the port where our family keeps its sea craft. The staff was friendly and helpful, dropping everything to take me out to Isle Esme on one of our boats.

Isle Esme is located off the coast of Brazil. Carlisle bought it for Esme awhile back and named it after her for some reason. It's now the Cullen "home base" of sorts, our only truly permanent residence. It works since it's so isolated. We get a new crew of servants every dozen years or so, to allay suspicion about our nature. Everyone except Carlisle and Alice went there to wait and see what happened with our drama.

I got to the island and stood for a long time just looking at the house. It sprawled over several thousand feet of land space, made of separate rooms interconnected by short passages. Fun place to play hide-and-seek in. I wasn't sure what kind of reception I'd get when I went in, whether they were "waiting" for me or not. Finally I walked up to the main door and went inside.

"Esme? Jasper? Emmett? Rosalie? I'm here!" I called out.

"Edward!" Esme came running from the room to my right. "Welcome home!" She threw her arms around me, and I gratefully grabbed her in a bear hug. I forgot how therapeutic a simple hug can be, with nothing behind it. At least with Esme, I could be sure it was innocent; she wouldn't do anything like grab my ass, something I wouldn't put past Rosalie or Alice.

"Carlisle was looking for you earlier," she told me. "He sounded kind of worried. Should I call-"

"No!" I interrupted her. "I mean, I already met up with him, and we talked, and we're good now."

"Are you sure? Because it sounded like he had a lot of things to go over with you."

"Oh, I'm sure. Really. In fact, he even told me he had a lot of important business to take care of, and that we shouldn't disturb him with calls unless it was an emergency."

"Okay, well, if you say so," she uncertainly. Then she brightened again. "Anyway, it's so good to have you back, Edward. I missed you when we all left and you decided to stay behind. Carlisle didn't say why, said you'd tell me if you wanted to. Will you tell me?"

"Yeah, it might help me. I had to see about a girl. You remember Bella?"

"Oh, yes, she was such a nice girl. Not exactly the sporty type, though, was she?"

"What? Oh, the baseball game. Yeah, no, she really wasn't." _Fun to make sport with, though._

"What happened between you two? I mean, you're here, so…?"

"She…quit. She broke it off." _With finality._ "I don't think I'll ever see her again."

"Oh, bad break-up? You poor dear." She embraced me again.

"That's as good an explanation as any, I guess." I hugged her back, more gently this time.

She looked up at me. "Do you want to talk about it?"

I smiled down at her. "Maybe later. Where's everyone else? Jasper, Rosalie, and Emmett?"

"Oh, well, Rosalie and Emmett went out on _another_ honeymoon. I think that is just so sweet. They are such a cute couple."

"Yeah, I guess." I'd forgotten how disconcerting Esme's thought process could be sometimes. They likely meant they were going to clean up a town-by feeding on all the lowlifes that no one cared about. "What about Jasper?"

"Oh, he's around somewhere-"

"_He's_ right here," said Jasper as he came around the corner from the other side of the house. "What happened, Edward? Your lady friend dump you for someone…better?" For a second I was terrified he knew what happened in Alaska. _Nah, he couldn't know that. Still…it's as good an explanation as any._

"Something like that. Like I just told Esme, she gave up on our relationship; gave up on me." _And on life, apparently. What a waste. _

He walked up to me and twisted his head so his upturned face was cock-eyed as he looked up at me. "So, you come here to mope around and spazz out before having fun again?"

I punched him in the arm. "I'm not the spazzer, _Spazzper_, remember?"

He glared at me. "I told you not to call me that."

"But why? Isn't that your name, _Spazzper_?"

"Oh that's it, you are so dead!"

"You'll have to catch me first!" With that, I ran around Esme to the next room of the house, with Jasper right on my heels. He chased me for hours, until finally I tired of the game and let him catch me. He noogied me so hard I checked for a groove in my skull when he was done.

The next couple of days were incredibly relaxing. Carlisle never made an appearance, Esme was attentive and motherly, and Jasper and I had a tussle about once a day over random things. Mostly I just lazed around and read any books or manuscripts I found laying around the house. Good times.

One day I found several official-looking documents stored away inside an armoire in the corner of a little-used room of the house. I was looking around some of them when I found some interesting papers. They were documents concerning the house and the land it was built on. Something didn't add up.

I wandered around the house, comparing a floor plan blueprint to the rooms in the house. When I realized what was off, I ran to find Jasper.

"Jasper! Take a look at this! We _need_ to go exploring."

"What? Edward, what _are_ you talking about?"

"Look at this!" I shoved the blueprint in his face. "This is the floor plan used to build this house."

He gave me an odd look. "Yeah, so?"

"So there's twenty connecting rooms in this house. How many are in the plan?"

He was silent for a moment while he counted. "There's…twenty-one."

"Exactly! There's a hidden room somewhere in this house."

I could see the gears in his head starting to turn. "Hey, yeah, and I never thought about _really_ exploring the place before, beyond a cursory inspection of all the rooms. I wonder what could be in there. Mountains of treasure?"

"Nah. Evidence of major crimes on Carlisle's part."

"Yeah, and he's keeping them in that room so that it can never be proven he was the perpetrator."

"Wait, wait, I have a better one! It's the hiding place for evidence that Carlisle was once an exotic dancer!"

"During the Victorian Era!"

"His routine went like this," I said, and struck a seductive pose. Then I spoke in a fake Don Juan voice. "Feast your eyes, ladies, as I undo the _top button_ of my ruffled shirt." I wasn't wearing a button-down shirt, so I mimed doing so.

Jasper played the part of the women, fluttering his lashes and speaking in a high-pitched voice. "Oh, dear, he's practically naked! Another! Undo another button!"

I continued. "Pay attention, damsels, as I reveal…my sexy knees!"

Jasper squealed and fell into a dramatic faint on the nearest couch, throwing an arm over his forehead.

He peeked at me under his arm, we looked at each other, then simultaneously burst out laughing at our overactive silliness.

"Let me see that again." Jasper reached for the blueprints and studied them for a while. "Hmm. It looks like this extra room is subterranean."

"You mean it's a basement room, or a root cellar or something?"

"Yeah. See how it's set off to the side like this? It's even a different color than the others, and obviously it's not an attic."

"Oh yeah, why didn't I see that before?"

He grinned at me. "Probably because you too busy spazzing about your 'amazing discovery.'"

I lightly smacked him upside the head. "Quiet, you!" I settled down to consider the blueprints again. I looked up at Jasper with conspiratorial grin. "So, do you want to do a little exploring?"

He grinned right back. "Wouldn't miss it."

We scoured each room of the house, looking for trap doors in the floor, or hidden passages behind walls. We were in Alice's room when Jasper cried out. I hurried over to him. "What? Did you find something?"

"I certainly did." He was holding…a toy. A very kinky adult toy. I couldn't even go into detail about it, except that it was designed to be inserted…somewhere; it made us both very uncomfortable to find that thing where we did, me because of what it was; Jasper because of _whose_ it was.

"So…is that thing for her…or for you?" I asked uneasily.

"I've never seen this one before," He turned frightened eyes on me. "I don't think I even want to know."

"Let's put it back and never speak of this again."

He nodded, very quickly. "Agreed." That ended our search of Alice's room.

We searched through the rest of the rooms in the house until we came to the one we had, until now, been deliberately avoiding: Carlisle's office. It was one of the outside rooms of the house, and one of those farthest from the front door, making it the most isolated of the rooms. The only entry points were the one door and the window-all the rooms had windows, but this one only had a small one high up on the wall, so it wasn't even a practical entrance. The room was lined with bookshelves filled with books, mostly about medical stuff, and crime mysteries. Toward the back of the wall was his desk, with a big comfy office chair behind it. Neither of us had been in there before; Carlisle had expressly forbidden anyone from going in there without his permission or invitation.

We stood outside it for several moments, not speaking. Finally I said, "So, we goin' in there?"

Jasper looked at me, then back in. "Yep."

"P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way Sydney?"

He gave me a disgusted look. "Not if you don't grow up."

"Tch. Spoilsport."

He took a hesitant step inside, with me right behind him. I half-expected some alarm to go off or something, because it seemed that what we were doing was just that disobedient and wrong. We paused when we were both completely inside, looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, and relaxed just a bit as we started prowling around.

Jasper found it first. "Hey, Edward! Over here!" He was crouched behind Carlisle's desk, after pulling the chair out. I went over to join him. "Look, there's a trap door in the floor."

"Under the desk? How cliché is that?" I scoffed.

"Took us long enough to find it, didn't it?"

"Only because Carlisle had us scared spit-less to come in here alone."

"Yeah, whatever. We going down there?" He lifted up the hinged lid and smiled at me.

I smiled back. "After you."

"My pleasure. Alley-oop!" he said as swung down into the darkness. I heard a crash. "Meant to do that!" Jasper called up. Then, "Watch that first step, it's a doozy!"

I chose to use the ladder I found against the wall, and climbed down after him. It took a minute or two for our eyes to adjust to the darkness, but eventually we could see well enough to find the chain that turned on the bare bulb overhead. What we saw when the light came on made us both gasp.

It was…a laboratory. The concrete walls and floor stretched a good distance out and maybe twenty feet wide. The walls were lined floor to ceiling with shelves. The shelves were covered in various scientific paraphernalia. There were hundreds of jars filled with different preserved creatures in various stages of development. One I recognized as a human, and there were several jars showing growth and development from an embryo just large enough to be seen with the naked eye, to the third trimester, with every limb and organ developed. On the shelf above was another human, but this one had skin that shimmered slightly, and apparently bright yellow eyes. What disease could cause _that_?

I looked further into the room, and saw a table in the center. It looked vaguely like a surgical table, but this one seemed to be made completely out of steel, and possibly some stronger metals, if I wasn't mistaken. There were two sets of shackles, one set near the middle, and the other at one end. At the opposite end was a clamp big enough to hold a human head. Big enough to hold a human…body. A shiver of fear went through me. _This is a freaky, freaky, place. Something bad went down here. _

Jasper shuddered. "I don't like this place, Edward. I can _feel_, it you know? Whatever happened here…it wasn't good, and was probably pretty gruesome."

"Whoever was lying on that table…" I gestured toward the metal object, then just shook my head.

"Let's keep looking, maybe we can find something to tell us exactly what this place is, and what happened." Jasper moved on down toward the back, stopping at an old desk near the back wall. I went back to examining the jars on the shelf. I saw a large glass jug with a white Catholic cross engraved and painted white on it. That looked interesting. I cautiously removed the stopper and took an experimental whiff of the contents. I didn't smell anything out of the ordinary. As far as I could tell, it was just regular water. I shrugged and replaced the stopper, then put the jug back on the shelf. Something tickled at the back of my mind, but I wasn't sure what. I looked back at the jug. Why keep water down here? It's not a bomb shelter; maybe it used to be? Still, why label water like that?

Then Jasper called out to me. "Edward, you wanna see this." I noticed it wasn't a question. He sounded a little anxious. Clearly he had found something _very_ interesting. I went over to him at the desk and saw he was reading some notebooks. On closer inspection I saw they were journals. Each entry was dated and written in practiced script. I read the entry Jasper currently had displayed.

07/14/19

Experiment: Fiery Hair, Fire Test-Testing the durability of vampire skin to commonly encountered sources of fire, and testing the effects of increasing conflagrations

Subject: V

Procedure: I started with a candle flame, holding it against the subject's skin to test what the subject felt, and how it affected the skin. I moved up to fire the size of a torch flame, then a campfire.

All the preceding flames caused some pain and/or irritation to the subject, and the skin appeared to scar up for a while, but it went back to normal within a couple hours.

In the final test, I applied a blowtorch flame to the subject's entire epidermis. The result of this test was fascinating: the subject's body became completely solid, turning into one impenetrable mass, but also rendering the subject immobile.

Conclusion: Vampires cannot be killed by exposure to fire on their skin; fire must get underneath the skin before they become combustible, as I established in my earlier experiment.

I looked up at Jasper. "This is sick. Carlisle was performing experiments on his own kind. On _our_ kind."

"And not just one; he has several of these." Jasper gestured to a small stack of notebooks he had found. He flipped to another random entry. "Look, here's another _interesting_ test. This stuff is actually good to know, even as horrifying as it is."

12/11/74

Experiment: The vulnerability of vampire skin to various piercing weapons.

Subject: J

Procedure: Tested effectiveness of different weapons on subject's epidermis, focusing on those particular to lore concerning vampires and other supernatural creatures. Materials and results:

Wooden stakes, focusing on ash, hawthorn, and oak: ineffective

Silver blades/points: ineffective, though it caused some discomfort and irritation for the subject

Other metal types: all ineffective

Vampire skin: effective, when made into a whip

Vampire teeth and nails: very effective; melted down material from such and coated previously tested weapons with material gleaned from former subjects. Thusly modified, previous weapons became effective puncturing tools.

Note: Wooden stakes with vampire nails covering the points were unexpectedly effective, causing paralysis in limbs where the subject was stabbed, and total paralysis when stabbed through the heart. It was not fatal, but did render the vampire completely helpless to anything I would want to do.

"Edward, this is appalling," Jasper said, in fearful awe of the sheer amount of knowledge contained in the volumes, and the method in which the knowledge was obtained.

"In more ways than one," I replied, looking around for something specific now. Jasper continued reading the grotesque tales while I prowled around the room, searching for the missing articles. In the very back of the room, I found what I was looking for. There was an outline of a door in the back wall, barely discernible in the light. It was covered with a thick layer of dust, which made it nigh invisible. I ran my fingers around the edges, searching for some kind of latch or indicator of a way to get it open. About halfway down the left side I found a small handle. Dust fell off as I lifted it and pulled. It wouldn't budge. No amount of pulling on my part would move it an inch. I gave up when I thought I might pull the handle off the door altogether. I turned around in frustration, tilted my head back, and fell heavily with my back against the door-which opened inward unexpectedly, causing me to stumble backward, almost falling on my backside in the middle of the room. What I saw when I got my bearings had me staring in disbelief.

The cluttered ten-by-ten room was stacked with a myriad of different vampire-slaying weapons and vampire deterrents taken from old lore. A number of different blades were arranged on a table, from cultures and eras all over the world. A giant sealed jar contained several cloves of garlic, and an entire shelf was dedicated to wooden stakes, of all different sizes and types of wood. All of them had a silvery substance covering their points, to about a third of the way toward the other end. _Oh. _These were the stakes Carlisle had used in that experiment.

I opened a chest in the back corner, and found a whole bunch of whips that looked silver-plated. I looked around and picked one up, flicking it idly, trying to get my mind around the room and its horrific content. Then it snapped back and whipped my upper arm.

It cut me.

I stopped playing with the whip, and instead held it between my hands and really examined it. I thought back to what Carlisle's notes had said. _Vampire skin: Effective, when made into a whip. _I dropped the weapon in horrified disgust and jumped back, rubbing my hands against my pants. I had been playing with…_vampire skin_.

"Edward…" Jasper called from the other room. His voice shook. He was nervous and scared. I came out and joined him again. "You better read this one," he said, and pointed shakily at a particular entry.

06/04/89

Experiment: The effects of holy water on vampires.

Subject: E

Procedure: Tested various amounts of holy water, starting with a few sprinkles against the skin, up to total immersion. No apparent harm or irritation to skin.

Final Test: Filled the spare area of brain cavity of subject with holy water; left it there all day, or until some observable reaction happened. Subject became noticeably calmer during course of experiment. Drained out water at day's end. Subject now appears to be brain-damaged; acquires simple understanding of events of world around her; accepts everything at face value.

Conclusion: Holy water effective only on direct contact with vampire brain.

"So what?" I asked.

"Read that description again. Then read the note underneath. Doesn't it remind you of someone?"

I read the entry again, and the personal note underneath that official entry:

I think I will keep this subject around, to observe any further development and to determine if the effect is permanent, or if it will wear off in time. That, and I feel some professional responsibility toward her, perhaps even some attraction. I know if I let her go into the world this way, she would most certainly die, and for some reason I don't wish for that to happen.

This time certain phrases jumped out at me: _brain-damaged; simple; accepts everything at face value_; yeah, it did remind me of someone. I darted a glance over to the jug with the cross that I had examined earlier. _Holy water. _ I looked up at Jasper, reflecting his horrified expression.

"Esme," I whispered. "I always thought she was damaged in her fall from the cliff…but Carlisle did it to her. She's stupid and witless because Carlisle ran a sick, twisted experiment on her."

Then, suddenly, I knew. I bowed my head and pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes. Carlisle wasn't going to sex me up in humiliating ways. I was going to be his next "subject," which would probably be even worse.

The wave of fear that came from me made Jasper pause. "Edward?"

"Jasper, I have to go."

"What? But, you haven't been here-"

"I have to leave!" I seized Jasper's upper arms and shook him a little. "I need you to do something for me, Jasper."

He stared at me, a little startled. "Well, sure, what do you need?"

"I need you to get Carlisle off my scent; tell him I'm going somewhere I'm not, like China or Siberia."

"Um, ok, but where _are _you going? And why are you trying to get away from Carlisle?"

I looked past Jasper, hit with sudden inspiration. "I think I'll go somewhere I can get lost indefinitely, if all goes well."

"Where?"

I looked back into Jasper's sympathetic eyes. "There are miles and miles of unexplored tunnels under the streets of Paris. I can possibly elude him forever there, if I'm lucky."

"To the catacombs of Paris?"

I smiled and nodded and began walking toward the ladder that would take me out of this demented science lab. "Yeah, Jasper. To the catacombs of Paris."


	12. Traveling Abroad with A Broad

**Ok, so, first off, sorry for the long delay between chapters, had a bit of writer's block for a couple weeks, then had to find revision time. Thanks to everyone who has ever sent me a review on these; they mean a lot, seriously. Now, without further ado:**

Chapter 12

The Catacombs of Paris are a network of tunnels and caves that run for more than 300 kilometers under the city. To build said city, you need materials. The Romans quarried the limestone in the area beginning about 60 B.C.E.; however, those quarries were the open-air kind -- the Romans just dug out the rock that was exposed. As the city grew and covered the landscape, tunneling would be required to get more building materials. In 1180 C.E., King Philippe-Auguste was a major proponent of tunneling to quarry in order to build ramparts to protect the city, and it was under his rule that this tunnel network would truly be born.

As quarries grew in size and complexity, problems began to arise. In the eighteenth century, the city of Paris (and the weight of its buildings) continued to grow as the ground became hollow underneath. At the same time, the graveyards were getting full... very full. The _Cimetière des Innocents_(Cemetery of the Innocent) alone held more than thirty generations of human remains.

So, the people who manage such things saw a way to kill two proverbial birds with one proverbial stone: they stacked bodies as supports for the tunnels below the city. That's right; there are sections of the Catacombs that are literally held up by walls of bones. A fitting place for a vampire pad, no? And that's where I set up camp, for a couple days.

My apartment, as it were, was a little room just off the beaten tourist path. To get to this room, you actually had to travel several miles around the tunnels to get to the other side of the coolest wall ever created by man. The wall, floor to ceiling, was composed of bones. Arm bones, leg bones, probably hands and feet as well, packed so tightly that you couldn't see completely through to the other side. That wasn't even the coolest part. In the center of the wall, the builders (who I assume had a macabre sense of humor) had built a cross. Out of human skulls. As soon as I saw that, I decided it was the perfect place for me to lay low for a while.

I spent a long time just walking around the catacombs, away from the tourist tunnels, getting the lay of the land. They say the tunnels go on for miles, and if you're not careful, you could get lost and find no way out, and eventually die down here. That's what I was counting on. If I could get lost, chances were I could lose not only myself, but a certain somebody as well.

I was walking down one sewer-like tunnel, musing about my chances of keeping away from Carlisle for any significant amount of time, when I thought I heard something in the wall behind me. I stopped walking and listened intently. There was a soft whisper of sound, as of a rat placing a foot on the ground or perhaps a moth taking flight. I set off again, and again heard the same sound, behind the wall to my right. I slowed and peered at the wall, attempting to determine what was making that sound.

Suddenly the wall exploded next to my head, and an arm snaked out and slid around my throat, anchoring my back to the wall. Carlisle! _Dammit, not again!_ I struggled frantically against his hold, but with as little leverage as I had, all I did was ineffectually pound the rock behind me.

"When are you going to get the picture, Edward? You can't hide from me, and you can't run forever."

"How…" I gasped out.

"Jasper told me of course. He just needed the right…persuasion." He squeezed a bit harder. "Did you really think you could keep a secret from me, Edward?"

I didn't answer, partly because I was momentarily struck speechless, and partly because Carlisle was squeezing my windpipe. I couldn't suffocate of course, but I couldn't draw breath to speak, either.

"Just suck it up and accept your fate, Edward. You can't escape me, and the sooner you accept that, the easier this will be for both of us."

Angry and frustrated now, I lashed out mentally. _**Accept it? Yeah, sure, why not? Just like "Subject J" and "Subject V" accepted it? And what about Esme? Did she accept it too?**_

"What?" He sounded genuinely confused, and his hold loosened just enough to let me slip free.

"It will never happen, Carlisle!" I yelled as I pelted down the tunnel, praying that our two tunnels didn't intersect somewhere down the line. I turned a corner, and barely managed to avoid running down a teenage boy who was apparently filming something down here. I sort of skipped around him and wound up on the other side. He cried out when he saw my currently terrified and terrifying visage; I had fed on a tourist the night before so my eyes probably glowed red. I was already freaked from my confrontation with Carlisle, and when I instinctively put my hands up, the boy saw my claws and fangs out. His eyes widened, and he dropped his camera, screamed, and ran down the tunnel the way I'd come. Great. Now I was a story to tell other tourists.

I raced through several more miles of tunnels before I decided to climb up to the surface. The pothole I'd chosen wasn't actually in use, so I had to use…persuasion of my own. The city construction workers would have a hard time explaining the hole I punched through the manhole cover. It kind of hurt, too.

Now what was I supposed to do? That was my last ditch effort to stay hidden anywhere for any length of time, and it barely took Carlisle three days to find me there. I was still determined that I would not submit to Carlisle, _I would not_. What made that harder was that I _was_ bound to him, and it would be virtually impossible for me not to submit to him if he got me in a situation with literally nothing between us. And now I was out in the open.

I could feel despair closing in around me. I didn't want that to happen. _I'd rather die_. What? Had I really thought that? Then I thought again. _Would_ I really rather die? Cease to exist, whatever? When the only other option was being Carlisle's lab rat, the answer had to be _yes_.

Speaking of Carlisle, I could hear him somewhere behind me, and I dashed off into the Parisian twilight.

His laughter echoed in my head. _**Do you really think I would chase you around Paris aboveground in daylight? You ought to know I would never do anything so undignified, Edward….**_

My mind raced, trying to think of some solution out of this mess, any solution. Even if I decided to off myself, how would I go about doing it? We weren't exactly easy to kill, and all the tools I knew about were back at the island…wait! Carlisle's old gang, the Volturi, they might have some! I had a feeling that that group would keep tabs on any information that vital, and keep the necessary implements on hand, or at least somewhere nearby Volterra, their home base. Now it only remained to get there, get them, and use them.

I decided to get to Italy by way of the bullet train from France. Quite frankly, I was just tired of running everywhere. I was standing in the train ticket line, when someone jostled me as they brushed past. "Hey, watch it!" I snapped.

"Oh sorry, I didn't _see_ you there," was the sarcastic reply. "I'll _look_ where I'm going next time."

Her acerbic attitude irritated me. "Listen, you-" I started, turning to face her. I stopped when I got a good look. The young woman in front of me was of average height, athletic build, had long dark brown hair, carried a cane and wore dark glasses inside. I didn't think she was making a fashion statement and she definitely wasn't crippled; she was obviously blind. As soon as I realized, I felt a little foolish for snipping at her like I did. "Sorry," I muttered.

She sighed. "Don't be. It's not your fault I'm having a bad day. Or that, you know, I'm 'visually challenged.'" She made air quotes as she said it. "What does that even mean?" she continued. "I mean, it's not like I can work to overcome it, like someday, if I work hard enough, I'll be able to see."

I chuckled at her humor, and played along in my best Shakespeare voice, "Avast, ye curs-ed blindness! I smiteth thee."

She giggled at that. "You are such a dork."

"Oh, that's rich, a grump calling me a dork. Grump."

She gasped dramatically. "How dare you insult an invalid! Jerk!"

"I think that was uncalled for. Bitch!"

"Bastard!"

"Shrew!"

She chuckled when I said that. "Shrew? Really? What century are _you_ from, hotshot?"

"I was born at the beginning of the twentieth century, actually."

She smiled tolerantly. "Oh, ok, well that explains everything then," she said, playing along with my "joke." Well, it was better that her thinking I was crazy, anyway. "And let me guess: your first name is Rip, and the rest is Van Winkle."

"Actually, it's Edward. Edward Cullen."

"Olivia. Olivia Norther." She put out her hand for a handshake, and I obligingly took it.

"Nice to meet you."

"Whoa! Cold hands alert! I thought mine tended to get cold."

"Yeah, it's a…family trait, kinda."

"Well, we all have our quirks. I for example, love ketchup on my scrambled eggs. So, where you off to?"

It turned out we were both bound on the same train, and we managed to sit together, I guess because we both wanted-and maybe needed-the company.

"So, clearly we're both not natives; what brings you to France?"

I sighed ruefully. "Would you believe I'm running away from my father?"

"Eh, I've heard stranger stories."

"Really? Like what?"

"Well, I met this guy once who swore up and down he was being stalked by a vampire. Crazy, huh?"

"Uh, yeah, that-that's pretty crazy."

"Me? I'm here to experience the sounds, smells, and feel of Europe. Sights are for pansies!"

What? "The…feel?"

"Sure! The feel of the terrain, the crowds around you. Did you know, I've developed a sort of empathy, being blind? I can sort of feel the stronger emotions of the people around me. It's almost like an energy field."

"Really? What have you felt so far?" I was partly intrigued by what she had to say, and partly I just wanted to get my mind off things for a while.

"Well, most of the folks in Paris tend to be polite, but they're arrogant as well…"

We talked non-stop the whole ride, and it was one of the most stimulating conversations I've ever had. We talked about everything, even the weather, and she could elicit the most outrageous reactions out of me. _This is the person I want for my partner. _The thought came unbidden from my head. Wait, what? Really? I thought about it for a second, and came to the conclusion that my initial thought was correct. Here was a girl who I could laugh and joke with, who teased and challenged me. Not like Bella. I could only think of Bella in the long term in the long-term as a sort of pet, but Olivia here? She could be my _mate_; by the old definition. _Maybe if I had met her first, before Bella_…but I didn't, and now I would have to deal. Thinking about Bella made me remember what I was doing here, and my mood soured.

"…and sometimes I think I would do anything to recover my sight, but then…Uh-oh. Your 'mood smell' just changed to grumpy. What made you into Grumpus Magoo?" Olivia asked.

"Nothing. Just…we're almost there. Any minute we'll slow down and pull up to the station."

"Oh. That trip went fast. Maybe because I had such a stimulating conversation partner," she said suggestively, smiling.

"Nah, it was just your dazzling personality making a time-warp."

"Pfff! Whatever, sparky. Hey, before I forget, here's my number," she handed me a business card, "look me up if you're ever in the area."

I took it from her and slid it into my pocket. "Thanks." I hesitated, and said, "Hey, what _would_ you give to be able to see again?"

She stilled. "What?"

I shook my head. "Sorry, never mind, stupid question. Well, this is where our paths diverge." I paused, then gave her a quick kiss on the lips. "Good-bye." I stepped back and paused, feeling like an idiot, before I left her, surprised and pressing fingers to her suddenly-chilled lips.

* * *

By the time I reached the castle at Volterra, I had a plan in mind. It was pretty simple; I would just do what I had had lots of practice doing these past few weeks: lie like a rug and hope my luck didn't run out.

It started with Aro. I found him in his office. He folded his hands on the desk in front of him and leaned forward, looking me in the eyes. "So…you say you want to join the Volturi?"

"Yes, sir," I said awkwardly. I was totally winging it here.

"Why?" he demanded.

I rubbed the back of my neck. "Well, mostly I'm sick of Carlisle's rules; I'm tired of subsisting on animal blood. It's like snacking on rice cakes when I could be having steak."

Aro chuckled. "Yes, I can see how you might feel stifled by such expectations as he has."

"Yeah, but I'm kind of afraid," I continued, not looking him in the eyes. "I think he might come after me; force me to come back with him."

"Ah yes, you're one of those bound to him, aren't you?" My apparent situation amused him.

"Yeah, so could you not call him for a while? That would kind of ruin everything."

He leaned back and folded his hands behind his head. "I'll…consider your request. In the meantime, stay close to the castle; don't wander off, but feel free to explore our home."

I bowed my head slightly. "Thank you, sir." I left the room, and smiled when I was clear. That was exactly the opening I was hoping for. I immediately went to explore the keep.

The Volturi's castle was old enough to be made mostly out of stone. Some effort had been made to soften the harsh feel with draperies and rugs or carpets, but they couldn't completely keep the oppressive atmosphere at bay. I thought it was nice.

I was in a fanciful mood, so I halfway expected the room I sought to be at the end of the hall, in the farthest room of the tallest tower of the castle, like the princess in a fairy tale. Well, I looked there, and it was a room of sunshine; an open window let in a sunbeam that filled the room with sunlight; _not _what I was looking for. The room I wanted was actually in the opposite place. I found it, an abandoned and probably all but forgotten room at the far end of a hallway in the one of the lowest levels of the structure. When I opened the door, I saw the eerily familiar scene of Carlisle's back room. Nearly everything in it shimmered with a silvery sheen created by the thin layer of vampire skin that coated each implement of vampiric destruction. I found replicas of every weapon I remembered seeing in Carlisle's collection, even down to the whips glinting in the weak light. When I saw that, one word blossomed in my mind:

_Jackpot_.

**Ok, so thanks once again to all my readers, and especially my reviewers! I regret to say that my next update will be at least another couple weeks, as Renie is going on vacation to Hawaii! WOOOOH! Anyway, sorry for being such a tease, I don't mean to be! I think right now that next chapter will be the last for this week. Stay tuned for more!**


	13. Expectations

To all my loyal readers: sorry I took so long! Almost a month, I think; possibly longer. Craaaazy stuff happening to me lately, including a trip to Hawaii! So, you get an extra long chapter this time. Now, without further ado, Chapter 13:

Expectations

The device was complicated. It was covered with wooden stakes, much like one side of an iron maiden torture device. The base had a shallow trench around the edge. I had filled it with oil, and set fire to it; it would burn for a while. When I dropped onto the stakes, my vampy fluids should be exposed in all their flammable gooey glory, and catch fire, thereby engulfing me in a conflagration that should provide adequate entertainment for the crowds out celebrating the Festival of St. Marcus or whatever the hell their holiday was.

Why did I build such a complicated contraption? The simple answer was that I was a coward, and I knew it. I knew that if I tried something like slicing off my own head I wouldn't have the guts to go through with it. This way, after I jumped, I couldn't chicken out. The only hard part now would be the jumping. The spot I'd chosen was the clock tower in the town square.

The plan, fortunately, was simple. All I would have to do was fall onto it. If I was going to go out, I wanted to go out with a bang—literally and figuratively. The crowds would likely think it was just another show, and I was okay with that. The day of, I stood near the top of the tower, waiting for noon, at which point I would expose myself just before jumping. _Hee hee, 'Expose myself.' _I had a sudden image of myself in the square, naked under a trench-coat, shocking mothers and old women as I flashed random people. _I think the enormity of my situation is making me giddy. Is it normal to think such silly things while contemplating an action that is so serious, so final?_

It was nearing noon, so I stepped out to look over my suicide machine one last time, to make sure everything was still in order. That's when I saw him; the half-expected face in the crowd I'd nonetheless hoped I wouldn't see. Carlisle stepped out from behind a building down below and stared grimly up at me.

_**So it's come to this, has it?**_ he started in what I was sure would be our final conversation.

_**I won't be one of your test subject lab rats, Carlisle.**_

_**Why do you think I have that mind?**_ He sounded genuinely confused.

_**I read your journals. I saw what happened to Esme. I'd rather die than be reduced to that-**_ I broke off my thought in anguish.

He let out an exasperated sigh. _**Edward, listen to me. Though I admit to an uncaring attitude in regard to the pain and suffering I caused my subjects, the goal was always about scientific research. I got all my questions answered years ago, and doing anything to any more subjects would be **__**superfluous and altogether pointless. Now come down from there.**_

I stared blankly at him for several seconds.

The clock struck twelve. _BONNNG._

Part of me wanted to believe what he said, did not want to die.

_BONNNG._

Olivia sarcastically replying that she would "watch where she was going" flashed through my brain.

_BONNNG._

...followed by an image of Esme's simple, smiling face.

_BONNNG._

My face twisted into a visage of hurt, betrayal, and sadness as I said to Carlisle, _**I don't believe you.**_

I quickly stripped off my shirt, and my chest sparkled like diamonds in the sun. Carlisle grimaced at the sight, which faintly amused me. I took a couple steps back to get a running start—

—and was suddenly tackled from behind! Our momentum took us both tumbling so close to the edge that I could easily look down to see the device of my destruction, and I pinwheeled my arms, frantically trying to regain my balance and prevent falling to the pavement far below. Apparently I wanted to continue my existence after all. When I was steady again, I broke my attacker's hold and angrily turned to confront whoever had dared interfere with my plans—only to see chocolate-brown eyes staring up urgently into mine.

* * *

I froze for several seconds, just staring at her. "Bella?! But-you're-they told me that you-?"

"I'm not dead," she quickly answered. "I didn't kill myself, so don't you do it either."

Emotions crashed through me, and I wasn't sure how I felt. Happy, angry, mostly relieved, at the realization that they had lied to me, Carlisle and Alice both. Bella happily embraced me and I responded by enfolding her in my arms and crushing her to my chest. "Oh, Bella, I'm so glad to see you," I murmured.

_Not as glad as I am to see you, _the thought flitted through her mind.

_I doubt that, honey._

Soon I got another thought from her. _Can't...breathe..._I hastily let her go and pushed her arms' length away from me. She took a couple grateful deep breaths, then walked back into my arms. I hugged her again, more gently this time. "Bella..." I still couldn't believe it. "I thought I'd lost..."

"What?" Her question was muffled against my shoulder.

Oops! "I...thought I'd lost..._you_. All this time I thought I'd lost you." She beamed up at me. _Whew! Good answer._

"Well, you found me now, so tell me you're going to forget this 'offing yourself' nonsense," she demanded.

"Of course; now that you're here." _**What's going on, Carlisle? **_I sent out as forcefully as I could.

_**Oh, didn't I tell you she was all right? Must have slipped my mind...**_He was way too casual about it.

_**I'll just bet it did, you bastard.**_

_**Really Edward, that insult is getting old; consider expanding your vocabulary horizons in the future, hmm? **_I just barely suppressed an audible growl at that. Carlisle, it seemed, really couldn't resist trying to get under my skin. Which wouldn't have been as much of an issue if he weren't so good at it.

"Oh!" Bella pushed away from me. "Alice told me we had to hurry, before the Volturi caught on to what-"

"Never mind," I cut her off. "They already know, and this is their city. Let's get down from here." I glanced briefly off the ledge. "Safely." I led her back down from the tower. When we entered into the noonday sun, a couple of locals were waiting for us. I stepped protectively in front of Bella.

"Greetings, gentlemen," I kept my voice calm and pleasant. "I am extremely grateful for the...kindness and hospitality shown toward me while in your beautiful city. I would appreciate it very much if you would send my thanks to your masters."

"Shall we take this conversation to a more appropriate venue?" a smooth voice whispered menacingly.

"I don't believe that will be necessary." My voice was harder now. "I know your instructions, Felix. I haven't broken any rules."

"Felix merely meant to point out the proximity of the sun," the other one said in a soothing tone. They were both concealed within smoky gray cloaks that reached to the ground and undulated in the wind. "Let us seek better cover."

"I'll be right behind you," I said dryly. "Bella, why don't you go back to the square and enjoy the festival?" I hoped she had so far escaped their interest.

No such luck. "No, bring the girl," the first shadow said, somehow injecting a leer into his whisper.

"I don't think so." My pretense of civility disappeared. I shifted my weight, preparing for a fight.

"No." I heard her whisper behind me.

"Shh," I murmured.

"Felix," the second, more reasonable shadow cautioned. "Not here." He turned to me. "Aro would simply like to speak with you again, if you have not decided to join our organization after all."

"What?" Bella breathed behind me.

"I'll tell you later," I promised her. "Certainly," I said to the two. '"But the girl goes free."

"I'm afraid that's not possible," the polite shadow said regretfully. "We do have rules to obey."

"Then I'm afraid that I'll be unable to accept Aro's invitation, Demetri."

"That's just fine," Felix purred. He was very big, tall and thick through the shoulders. His size was reminiscent of Emmett.

"Aro will be disappointed," Demetri sighed.

"I'm sure he'll survive the letdown," I replied.

Their eyes narrowed, and I was certain it would come down to a fight after all, when a familiar scent wafted down the alley toward us. All three of us vampires spun to face the newcomer.

"Let's behave ourselves, shall we?" a lilting voice suggested. "There are ladies present." Alice tripped lightly to my side, her stance casual. There was no hint of any underlying tension. She looked so tiny, so fragile. Her little arms swung like a child's, but I knew how quickly they could move when the necessity arose. Fast enough to kill a vampire with her bare hands.

Demetri and Felix both straightened up, their cloaks swirling slightly as a gust of wind funneled through the alley. Felix's face soured. Bella mused that they must not like even numbers. If she only knew.

"We're not alone," Alice reminded them, and flicked her gaze behind them. Demetri glanced over his shoulder. A few yards into the square, a little family, with girls in red dresses, was watching us. The mother was speaking urgently to her husband, her eyes on the five of us.

Demetri shook his head. "Please, Edward, let's be reasonable," he said.

"Let's," I agreed. "And we'll leave quietly now, with no one the wiser."

Demetri sighed in frustration. "At least let us discuss this more privately."

I clicked my teeth together. "No."

Felix smiled.

"Enough." Yet another local vampire entered our scene. She was slim and petite, and any other word you might use to describe a woman as "small." She was also not someone you defied, or you were in for a world of hurt. Really.

"Jane," I sighed in recognition and resignation.

"Follow me," Jane spoke again, her childish voice a monotone. She turned her back on us and drifted silently into the dark. Alice walked after the little Jane at once. I wrapped my arm around Bella's waist and pulled her along beside me. The alley angled slightly downward as it narrowed. She looked up at me with frantic questions in her eyes, but I just shook my head.

"Well, Alice," I said conversationally as we walked. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to see you here."

"It was my mistake," Alice answered in the same tone. "It was my job to set it right."

"What happened?" My voice was polite, as if I were barely interested. She was getting a mental "earful" however. _**WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK WAS ALL THAT FUCKINGLY FUCKING FUCKERY WHEN YOU TOLD ME SHE WAS FUCKING DEAD?!**_

"It's a long story." Alice's eyes glanced casually toward me and away. "In summary, she did jump off a cliff, but she wasn't trying to kill herself. Bella's all about the extreme sports these days." I could see all that was in Alice's thoughts now. Near-drownings, werewolf friends, friend turned friendlier…

"Hm," I said curtly, and the casual tone was gone.

There was a loose curve to the alley, still slanting downward, toward a dead end that became a flat, windowless, brick face. Jane was nowhere to be seen. She had already gone ahead, down into under the street. We followed one by one down into it. I had to drop Bella down to Alice waiting below, because she was too scared to do it herself, but eventually we all made it down. As we traveled down a connecting tunnel, I made token gestures of affection toward Bella-running my fingers through her hair, or innocent touches on her face or hands; partly for her, so she'd believe my love ruse, and partly because I still really couldn't believe she was alive. I think I was still sort of in a state of shock.

We moved at a snail's pace through the tunnel, but it probably felt like hurrying to Bella. Our slow progress irritated the locals. It amused me. At the end of the tunnel was a grate–the iron bars were rusting, but thick as my arm. A small door made of thinner, interlaced bars was standing open. I ducked through and went on to a larger, brighter stone room. The grille slammed shut with a clang, followed by the snap of a lock. On the other side of the long room was a low, heavy wooden door. It was very thick–it, too, stood open.

We stepped through the door, and Bella glanced around in surprise, relaxing automatically.  
I, on the other hand, tensed, jaw clenched tight. I knew where we were going. We took a short elevator ride to what was essentially a reception room. The walls were paneled in wood, the floors carpeted in thick, deep green. There were no windows, but large, brightly lit paintings of the Tuscan countryside hung everywhere as replacements. Pale leather couches were arranged in cozy groupings, and the glossy tables held crystal vases full of vibrantly colored bouquets. In the middle of the room was a high, polished mahogany counter. Bella gawked in astonishment at the woman behind it. She was tall, with dark skin and green eyes. She was very pretty-for a human. Because she was very bit a human. Questions were running through Bella's brain, mostly about what this human woman was doing here, totally at ease, surrounded by vampires.

She smiled politely in welcome. "Good afternoon, Jane," she said. There was no surprise in her face as she glanced at Jane's company. As if a vampire and disheveled human girl walked in here off the street every day.

Jane nodded. "Gianna." She continued toward a set of double doors in the back of the room, and we followed.

As Felix passed the desk, he winked at Gianna, and she giggled.

On the other side of the wooden doors was a different kind of reception. The pale boy in the pearl gray suit could have been Jane's twin. His hair was darker, and his lips were not as full, but he was just as lovely. He came forward to meet us. He smiled, reaching for her. "Jane."

"Alec," she responded, embracing the boy. They kissed each other's cheeks on both sides.

Then he looked at us.

"They send you out for one and you come back with two… and a half," he noted, looking at  
Bella. "Nice work." She laughed.

"Welcome back, Edward," Alec greeted. "You seem in a better mood."

"Marginally," I agreed flatly.

Alec chuckled, and examined Bella as she clung to my side. "And this is the cause of all the trouble?" he asked, skeptical. I nodded. "Aro will be so pleased to see you again," Alec said, as if this were a social call.

"Let's not keep him waiting," Jane suggested.

Alec and Jane, holding hands, led the way down yet another wide, ornate hall. They led us quickly to another cavernous room that had a handful of vampires engaged in quiet conversation. They all turned toward our party as we entered the room. Most of them were dressed in inconspicuous pants and shirts–things that wouldn't stick out on the streets below. But the man who spoke first wore one of the long robes. It was pitch-black, and brushed against the floor. The color matched his long, jet-black hair.

"Jane, dear one, you've returned!" he cried in evident delight. His voice was just a soft sighing. He drifted forward, glided to Jane, took her face in his hands, kissed her lightly on her full lips, and then floated back a step.

"Yes, Master." Jane smiled; the expression made her look like an angelic child. "I brought him back alive, just as you wished." I jerked my head to look at her when I heard that. She had specific orders to bring me back alive? Did that mean he had called-?

"Ah, Jane." He smiled, too. "You are such a comfort to me." I remembered again why this became a last resort for me-because Aro creeped me the hell out.

He turned his eyes toward us, and the smile brightened–became ecstatic. It was somewhat eerie. "And Alice and Bella, too!" he rejoiced, clapping his thin hands together. "This is a happy surprise! Wonderful!"

I stood sullenly as he called our names informally, as if we were old friends dropping in for an unexpected visit. He turned to our escort. "Felix, be a dear and tell my brothers about our company. I'm sure they wouldn't want to miss this." Oh boy, we were in for it now.

"Yes, Master." Felix nodded and disappeared back the way we had come.

"You see, Edward?" He turned and smiled at me like a fond but scolding grandfather. "What did I tell you? Aren't you glad that I didn't give you what you wanted yesterday?" He looked at me expectantly.

"Yes, Aro, I am," I agreed, because I was supposed to say it; he wanted me to, and at this point I didn't dare say anything else.

"I love a happy ending." Aro sighed. "They are so rare. But I want the whole story. How did  
this happen? Alice?" He turned to gaze at Alice with curious, misty eyes. "Your brother seemed to think you infallible, but apparently there was some mistake."

"Oh, I'm far from infallible." She flashed a dazzling smile. She looked perfectly at ease, except that her hands were balled into tight little fists. "As you can see today, I cause problems as often as I cure them."

"You're too modest," Aro chided. "I've seen some of your more amazing exploits, and I must  
admit I've never observed anything like your talent. Wonderful!" Aro glanced between Alice and me. "I'm sorry, we haven't been introduced properly at all, have we? It's just that I feel like I know you already, and I tend get ahead of myself. Your brother introduced us yesterday, in a peculiar way. You see, I share some of your brother's talent, only I am limited in a way that he is not." Aro shook his head; his tone was envious. Yeah, he wished he had my power.

I swiftly explained for the benefit of Bella and Alice, who didn't know yet. "Aro needs physical contact to hear your thoughts, but he hears much more than I do. You know I can only hear what's passing through your head in the moment. Aro hears every thought your mind has ever had."

Alice raised her delicate eyebrows, and sent to me. _**Every thought ever? **_I nodded slightly. Mm_**, sounds like potential fun.**_

_**You don't know the half of it...**_

Aro didn't miss our exchange. "But to be able to hear from a distance…" Aro sighed, gesturing toward the two of us. "That would be so convenient." Sure. Convenient for him, and stupid-scary for the rest of us; no thanks.

Just then the final players arrived at the party. Both looked very much like Aro, one even had the same flowing black hair. The other had a shock of snow-white hair–the same shade as his face–that brushed against his shoulders. The trio from Carlisle's past was complete, unchanged by the last three hundred years .

"Marcus, Caius, look!" Aro crooned. "Bella is alive after all, and Alice is here with her! Isn't that wonderful?"

_Good Lord, could he _be_ any more of a drama queen? No wonder Carlisle left..._

Seemed that Marcus and Caius might have agreed with me. Neither of the other two looked as if 'wonderful' would be their first choice of words. One seemed utterly bored, like he'd seen too many millennia of Aro's enthusiasm, and the other's face was sour under the snowy hair.

They both went to be seated against the wall, in throne-like chairs. What drama queens, all of them. Two of the attending vampires followed silently behind each of them–bodyguards, superfluous as they ultimately were. I could hear Bella muse that maybe the older vampires were weaker somehow, and needed guards. The assumption made me want to smack her upside the head. Apparently the concept of an honor guard was too far over her head for her feeble mind to grasp.

"It's just so difficult to understand, even now," Aro mused, looking between me and Bella again. "If I hadn't smelled her through your memories, I wouldn't have believed the call of anyone's blood could be so strong. I've never felt anything like it myself. Most of us would trade much for such a gift, and yet you…"

"Waste it," I finished sarcastically.

Aro laughed again. "Ah, how I miss my friend Carlisle! You remind me of him–only he was not so angry."

"Carlisle outshines me in many other ways as well." _Like in douchebaggery, for example._

Aro chuckled. "I must admit I am curious now, about one thing." He eyed Bella with bright interest.

"May I?" he asked eagerly, lifting one hand.

"Ask her," I said in a flat voice. I sort of knew what he wanted. He _had _spoken with Carlisle, probably months before now, and he wanted to see if he could find her potential; potential that had eluded my observation, thus far.

"Of course, how rude of me!" Aro exclaimed. "Bella," he addressed her directly now. "I'm fascinated that you are the one exception to Edward's impressive talent–so very interesting that such a thing should occur! And I was wondering, since our talents are similar in many ways, if you would be so kind as to allow me to try–to see if you are an exception for me, as well?" At least he was playing along with my ruse.

He lightly touched her hand with his own, and settled in to examine her thoughts. Aro's face altered as I watched. The confidence wavered and became first doubt, then incredulity before he calmed it into a friendly mask. "So very interesting," he said as he released her hand and drifted back.

_**I couldn't completely read her, Edward. **_I darted my gaze toward him. Had I heard him right? She really had some special talent or...something? **_I wonder how she would fare under Jane's ministrations..._**

_What?_

"A first," he said to himself. "I wonder if she is immune to our other talents… Jane, dear?"

"No!" I snarled the word. That might just break our tenuous relationship for good! All that "quality time" with Carlisle for nothing. Alice grabbed my arm with a restraining hand. I shook her off.

Jane smiled up happily at Aro. "Yes, Master?"

"I was wondering, my dear one, if Bella is immune to you."

Jane nodded, and turned toward us with a beatific smile. _**Sorry, Edward, but it always works better when I have a demonstration.**_

_Oh, fu-_and I suddenly entered a world of pain. It felt like welding torch flames were being run up and down my limbs, while at the same time high-pitched squealing noises were assaulting my ears. Every sense, every nerve ending was being overloaded with agony and screaming at me to STOP THE PAIN! and I had no way to do so.

The pain ended abruptly, and I discovered that sometime during Jane's "demonstration" I had curled up into a fetal position on the floor. I sprang to my feet as soon as I had control over myself again. Then I remembered the purpose of subjecting me to that horror. I whipped around to look at Bella, and Jane was looking at her too, a small sadistic smile on her face.

Bella looked scared, and I didn't blame her. I could hear her thoughts loud and clear: _No, no pain, I don't want to feel that pain, no pain, no pain..._like a mantra in her head. She shrank back, waiting for the pain. I waited for it to overtake her...

…

…

Nothing. I looked back at Jane, and she no longer smiled. She glared at Bella, her jaw clenched with the intensity of her focus. Nothing happened. It wasn't working. This was it-or a piece of it, anyway. Carlisle had hinted at 'interesting abilities' that Bella might have. She focused her thoughts on not being in pain-and Jane couldn't inflict it on her. This was unprecedented, and potentially terrifying; it could disrupt my entire plot.

Aro started to laugh. "Ha, ha. ha," he chuckled. "This is wonderful!"

Jane hissed in frustration, leaning forward like she was preparing to spring.

"Don't be put out, dear one," Aro said in a comforting tone, placing a powder-light hand on her shoulder. "She confounds us all." He slowly scanned our small party. "So what do we do with you now?" Aro sighed.

Alice and I stiffened.

"I don't suppose there's any chance that you've reconsidered?" Aro asked me. "Your talent would be an excellent addition to our little company."

I hesitated. From the corner of my eye, I saw both Felix and Jane grimace. I weighed each word before I spoke it, not wanting to make the situation worse. "I'd… rather… not."

"Alice?" Aro asked, still hopeful. "Would you perhaps be interested in joining with us?"

"No, thank you," Alice said.

"And you, Bella?" Aro raised his eyebrows.

I hissed involuntarily. I stared at Aro blankly. Was he joking? Or was he really recruiting the one I'd decided would be bound to me?

It was Caius who broke the silence.

"What?" he said flatly.

"Caius, surely you see the potential," Aro said. "I haven't seen a prospective talent so promising since we found Jane and Alec. Can you imagine the possibilities when she is one of us?"

Caius looked away with a caustic expression. Jane's eyes sparked with indignation at the comparison.

"No, thank you," Bella whispered, her voice breaking in fright.

Aro sighed. "That's unfortunate. Such a waste."

I hissed at his implication. "Join or die, is that it? I suspected as much when we were brought to this room. So much for your _laws_." I sneered at the last word.

The tone of his voice caught me by surprise. He sounded irritated, but slightly confused-much like Carlisle when I said I wouldn't be his lab rat. "Of course not." Aro blinked, astonished. "We were already convened here, Edward, awaiting Heidi's return. Not for you."

"Aro," Caius hissed. "The law claims them."

I glared at Caius. "How so?" I wanted to hear him say it.

Caius pointed at Bella. "She knows too much. You have exposed our secrets."

"There are a few humans in on your charade here, as well," I pointed out. I just wanted this whole thing done with.

Caius's face twisted into a new expression. "Yes," he agreed. "But when they are no longer useful to us, they will serve to sustain us. That is not your plan for this one. If she betrays our secrets, are you prepared to destroy her? I think not," he scoffed. This plan was taking a nasty turn.

"Unless…" Aro interrupted. "Unless you do intend to give her immortality?"

_Huh? _I considered his question for a moment. _What is the plan here? _"And if I do?"

Aro smiled, happy again. "Why, then you would be free to go home and give my regards to my friend Carlisle." His expression turned more hesitant. "But I'm afraid you would have to mean it."

_What?_

And then Alice stepped away from us, forward toward Aro. We turned to watch her. Her hand was raised like his. She didn't say anything, and Aro waved off his anxious guard as they moved to block her approach. Aro met her halfway, and took her hand with an eager, acquisitive glint in his eyes. He bent his head over their touching hands, his eyes closing as he concentrated. Alice was motionless, her face blank. No one moved. Aro seemed frozen over Alice's hand. Another moment passed, and then Aro's voice broke the silence.  
"Ha, ha, ha," he laughed, his head still bent forward. He looked up slowly, his eyes bright with excitement. "That was fascinating!"

Alice smiled wryly. "I'm glad you enjoyed it."

"To see the things you've seen–especially the ones that haven't happened yet!" He shook his head in wonder.

"But that will," she reminded him, voice calm.

"Yes, yes, it's quite determined. Certainly there's no problem."

Caius looked bitterly disappointed–a feeling he seemed to share with Felix and Jane.

"Aro," Caius complained.

"Dear Caius," Aro smiled. "Do not fret. Think of the possibilities! They do not join us today, but we can always hope for the future. Imagine the joy young Alice alone would bring to our little household… Besides, I'm so terribly curious to see how Bella turns out!" So was I. Where had her unexpected ability suddenly come from? Did it have something to do with proximity to us? Simply a connection to puberty? _What_?

Wait. _**What did you tell him? **_I asked Alice.

_**Just that if you didn't change Bella, I would.**_

_**And you meant that?**_

_**You better believe it. **_She smiled her aren't-I-so-cute-and-innocent smile, and I knew I'd have to watch out for her. I suddenly had the feeling that she was out to get Bella for herself, Carlisle's orders or no.

Aro dismissed us then, with the return of "Heidi" and her tourist snacks; meanwhile we waited in a chamber below. Bella had a breakdown, during which I got the whole story of what had happened while I was gone. I think it's a good thing I wasn't there; I probably would have made an early reappearance.

Night fell over Volterra; our guards allowed us to leave, and we departed the town under the cover of darkness.

* * *

**That's right, Bella's back! I'm sure you've also noticed we're back on canon as well. My original goal was to make this the last chapter, but I'm afraid there's still one more to go, at least. *le sigh***

**That'll be our wrap-up for this segment of the series, and after reading summaries and some of the text myself, I think Eclipse will be something a little different. ("And now, for something completely different!" as Monty Python would say.)**


	14. Back to Forks

Alice led us toward a dark car, waiting in a pool of shadow to the right of the gate with the engine running. This time, I slid into the backseat with Bella, instead of insisting on driving. I wasn't really up for it after all the emotional baggage of the day.

Alice was apologetic. "I'm sorry." She gestured vaguely toward the dashboard. "There wasn't much to choose from."

"It's fine, Alice." I grinned. "They can't all be 911 Turbos."

She sighed and said wistfully, "I may have to acquire one of those legally. It was fabulous."

"I'll get you one for Christmas," I jokingly promised.

"Yellow," she requested.

"You can sleep now, Bella," I murmured to the girl cradled in my arms. "It's over."

"I don't want to sleep. I'm not tired." Just like a toddler, insisting she wasn't tired, when she was nearly sleepwalking already.

I sighed and shook my head. "You're still just as stubborn."

Alice bought Bella and me some new clothes at the airport, and about an hour later we were on a plane home.

"Bella, you should rest now," I said when we had settled in for the flight.

Alice and Carlisle were seated behind us, and I could hear her murmuring to Jasper on the phone.

"I don't want to sleep," she said stubbornly. "If I close my eyes now, I'll see things I don't want to see. I'll have nightmares."

I didn't argue with that.

It would have been a very good time to talk, and Bella wanted answers. Actually, she probably deserved them. We had an uninterrupted block of time ahead of us, and no one would hear us except Alice and Carlisle; it was late, and most of the passengers were turning off lights and asking for pillows in muted voices.

But, perversely, Bella bit her tongue against the flood of questions. Her reasoning was that by postponing the discussion, she could buy a few more hours with me at her leisure later–spin this out for another night, Scheherazade-style.

I pretty much knew she wouldn't succeed in that, but I was, for the moment, perfectly content to hold her in my arms, tracing her face again and again. It still seemed unreal to me. The enormity of what I'd almost done-_for no reason at all_-still haunted me, and I wanted to cling to anything that seemed normal-especially Bella, who turned out to be my salvation. I was actually grateful to her. It was a weird feeling. I wished it would go away.

Bella was barely holding it together. Her last couple days would be hard on anybody, and coupled with the jet lag, she was feeling really worn down, so I kept silent. The fact that I had nothing to say made it easier.

* * *

Bella was awake when we reached the airport in Atlanta. She was proud of herself, thinking she hadn't missed one minute of our time on the plane. Truth was, she actually dozed off more than once, but now was not the time to bring that up. Maybe later on, when she was being more stubborn than usual again...

Neither Alice nor Carlisle nor I were surprised by the reception that waited for us at Sea-Tac airport, but it caught Bella off guard. I didn't care. Neither did Jasper, the first one I saw–he didn't seem to see anyone except for Alice. She went quickly to his side; they didn't embrace like other couples meeting there. They only stared into each other's faces, and the strength of their lustful thoughts made me shut them out before I embarrassed myself somehow.

Esme waited in a quiet corner far from the line for the metal detectors, in the shadow of a wide pillar. When we reached her, Esme embraced all three of us, hugging fiercely.

"Thank you so much," she whispered to Bella. I wondered what kind of story they had spun for her this time; what I could get from her mind was so jumbled and disjointed I soon gave up; I wasn't that interested anyway.

Then Esme threw her arms around me, and she looked like she would be crying if that were possible.

"You will never put me through that again," she nearly growled at me. _Whoa, down girl. _Abruptly I wondered what she had been like before she got...well, stupid.

I grinned repentantly. "Sorry, 'Mom.'"

Bella stumbled where she stood, she was so exhausted.

Esme gasped. "She's dead on her feet! Let's get her home." It _would_ be good to get home.

We half-supported, half-carried Bella across the parking lot to our waiting car. Emmett and Rosalie were waiting for us there. I tried not to think about how they had been entertaining themselves while the plane was coming in.

Emmett and Rosalie got in the front seat without speaking, while I pulled Bella into the back. She didn't fight to stay awake anymore, and instead laid her head against my chest. I felt the car purr to life. It was quiet then, except for the gentle thrum of the engine. Bella fell asleep, and only wakened when the car stopped and I carried her toward her house from the car. She was having a tough time keeping her eyes open.

And then we heard Charlie.

"Bella!" he shouted, coming out of the house and towards us.

"Charlie," Bella mumbled, trying to shake off her stupor.

"Shh," I whispered. "It's okay; you're home and safe. Just sleep." I didn't want to witness the family drama that was almost guaranteed to ensue.

Since Bella was in a stupor, Charlie decided to turn on me. "I can't believe you have the nerve to show your face here," Charlie bellowed at me, much closer now.

"Stop it, Dad," Bella groaned.

"What's wrong with her?" Charlie demanded.

"She's just very tired, Charlie," I assured him quietly. "Please let her rest." I just wanted to get out of there. Dealing with pissed-off fathers of teenage daughters was not on my top-ten list of things I liked to do.

"Don't tell me what to do!" Charlie yelled. "Give her to me. Get your hands off her!" Ok, I guess I couldn't blame him; the guy really was concerned about her.

I tried to pass her to Charlie, but she clung to me with locked, tenacious fingers. Charlie was rather frantically yanking on her arm.

"Cut it out, Dad," she said with more volume. She looked blearily up at Charlie. "Be mad at me, not him."

"You bet I will be," Charlie promised quietly. "Get inside."

"Kay. Let me down," she sighed.

I carefully set her on her feet. She swayed on her feet, took two steps forward, then teetered forward toward the ground. I caught her before she hit the concrete.

"Just let me get her upstairs," I said. "Then I'll leave."

"No," Bella cried. She still wanted answers.

"I won't be far," I promised, whispering low in her ear so Charlie didn't have a chance of hearing.

Charlie glowered at me, but nodded his assent, and I headed into the house with my burden.

I was feeling rather nostalgic that night, so I played inside Bella's dreams again, for old times' sake. There were plenty of monsters, red-eyed fiends that were all the more ghastly for their genteel civility, or familiar cheerfulness overshadowed by a furry muzzle and giant animal body. The dream was strong, and the strongest, clearest part of the dream was not the horror. It was the angel that was most clear. The angel was me. I pulled out all the stops to emphasize the impression; back-lit by hazy white light, and sparkly skin-though she already had _that_ image. I stopped at adding a halo, though; that might have been a bit too much.

* * *

After several hours, I decided she had been sleeping for long enough. I ran my fingers lightly over her forehead. She squeezed her eyes more tightly, trying to stay asleep. I got more persistent, touching her eyes, cheeks, chin lightly. She groaned and threw her arm across her eyes. She opened her eyes again–and I was still there, my face just inches away from hers. She jerked, startled, and I covered her mouth with my hand before she could make a sound.

"Did I frighten you?" I asked, removing my hand. She drew a slow, deep breath. "Please don't scream," I continued. "Charlie doesn't need to know I'm here, seeing as I've officially been banned and all."

She blinked twice, still not totally awake. Then the incredible journey she had taken over the last couple days caught up to her, and I could see that she didn't quite believe it, and to rationalize it, she decided that she was only dreaming; only, if I was there, then she must be...

"Oh, crap" she croaked throat thick from sleeping.

"What's wrong, Bella?"

She frowned at me unhappily. "I'm dead, right?" she moaned. "I did drown. Crap, crap, crap! This is gonna kill Charlie."

Now it was my turn to frown. "You're not dead."

"Then why am I not waking up?" she challenged, raising her eyebrows.

"You _are_ awake, Bella."

She shook her head. "Sure, sure. That's what you want me to think. And then it will be worse when I do wake up. If I wake up, which I won't, because I'm dead. This is awful..."

I decided to put a stop to her absurd assumption right then and there, and lightly pinched her arm. Well, it was light for me. Probably hurt like a bitch to her.

"OW!" Yep, hurt like a bitch. "Why did you do that?! That hurt..." She rubbed her reddened skin.

"You were beginning to talk crazy, so I decided to stop it before you descended into truly ridiculous assumptions."

"Did all of that really happen, then?" she asked, somewhat mystified.

"That depends." I smiled crookedly. "If you're referring to us nearly being massacred in Italy, then, yes."

"How strange," she mused. "I really went to Italy. Did you know I'd never been farther east than Albuquerque?"

I rolled my eyes. "Well obviously that's not true anymore. Maybe you should go back to sleep. You're not coherent."

"I'm not tired anymore." She was waking up. "What time is it? How long have I been sleeping?"

"It's just after one in the morning. So, about fourteen hours."

She stretched stiffly as I spoke.

"Charlie?" she asked.

"Sleeping. You should probably know that I'm breaking the rules right now. Well, not technically, since he said I was never to walk through his door again, and I came in the window… But, still, the intent was clear."

"Charlie banned you from the house?" Now she was getting angry. Excellent.

"Did you expect anything else?" I put on a sad smile.

Her eyes flashed in anger. She was already planning to have a few words with her father–remind him that she was legally an adult now. It didn't matter so much, of course, except in principle. That would no doubt drive a sizable wedge between them. I couldn't have come up with a better plan, for sure.

"So, what's the story?" she asked, genuinely curious, but also trying desperately to keep the conversation casual, to keep a firm grip on herself, so I wouldn't leave her again.

"What do you mean?" I replied.

"What am I telling Charlie? What's my excuse for disappearing for…how long was I gone, anyway?" She turned her head up thoughtfully.

"Just three days." I smiled invitingly. "Actually, I was hoping you might have a good explanation. I've got nothing." _Come on, Bella, you're all about the lying lately, right? Come up with a good one; deception is awesome between family members._

She groaned. "Fabulous."

She recovered from that rather quickly, then gave me a searching look. "So," she began, picking what she considered the most vitally interesting question to start with. "What have you been doing, up until a few days ago?"

"Nothing terribly exciting," I hedged. I certainly wasn't _about_ to tell her the _truth_.

"Of course not," she mumbled.

"Why are you making that face?"

"Well…" she pursed her lips. "If you were, after all, just a dream, that's exactly the kind of thing you would say. My imagination must be used up."

I sighed. "If I tell you, will you finally believe that you're not having a nightmare?"

"Maybe," she said after a second of thought. "If you tell me."

"I was…hunting." Technically true; I did take down that moose, after all.

"Is that the best you can do?" she scoffed. "That definitely doesn't prove I'm awake."

_Okay, that's it. _I was tired of this track her mind had taken.

"I'll prove you're awake," I informed her. I caught her face securely between my hands, ignoring her struggles when she tried to turn her head away.

"Please don't," she whispered.

This was unexpected. I stopped, my lips just half an inch from hers.

"Why not?" I demanded.

"When I wake up, or when you leave again, it's going to be hard enough without this, too."

I pulled back an inch, to stare at her face. It was 'impassioned speech' time.

"Yesterday, when I would touch you, you were so…hesitant, so careful, and yet still the same. I need to know why. Is it because I'm too late? Because I've hurt you too much? Because you have moved on? That would be…fair. I won't contest your decision. So don't try to spare my feelings, please–just tell me now whether or not you can still love me, after everything I've done to you. Can you?" I whispered.

"What kind of an idiotic question is that?"

_And what kind of an answer is that? _"Just answer it. Please."

She stared at me darkly for a long moment. "The way I feel about you will never change. Of course I love you–and there's nothing you can do about it!"

She meant it, as far as I could tell-and it was so cute the way she tried to keep control by adding that bit on the end there.

"That's all I needed to hear." I covered her mouth with my own, and she kissed me back while her heart pounded out a jagged, disjointed rhythm and her breathing turned to panting. She molded her body to mine as best she could, and I felt her hips arch against me. _Whoops, too far. We must protect your virtue, dear. Yeah, that's _totally _the reason._

I pulled away, and waited while Bella's labored breathing slowed and got quiet again.

"By the way, in case you were wondering, I'm not going anywhere. Not without you," I told her. I found some jeans on the floor and tossed them toward her. "Now get dressed and meet me outside. We need to take a walk."

"Wait, what?" she sputtered. "But, Edward-!" But I was already gone, disappeared out her window. She dressed quickly, and I met her downstairs.

She stopped at the bottom of the steps and put her hands on her hips. "Okay, we're outside. Now what is it?"

"Not here. Farther from the house. I don't want to wake Charlie."

She hesitated, remembering the last time I brought her out into the forest, then nodded and let me lead her out to where we could have some privacy.

* * *

**Yeah, so I cut out almost the entire "cute scene" in there. My characters don't really do "cute," I hope you understand by now. No vote either, because that just might be the absolute dumbest plot device ever devised by an actual published author. I was reading the book online (someone transcribed it on LJ) and everyone was gushing about how Bella finally stood up for herself, but...by letting literally everyone else decide the path of the rest of her existence? Not even a good try at it, really.**

**Honestly, I really wanted to make this the last chapter, but when I thought I was finally at the end, there was that epilogue. I haven't had any interaction between Jacob and Edward yet, and I think there will be some in my next book, so I've decided to work on that. One more, and then this one's done, I promise! You AND me, I promise. **

** Happy reading, readers!**


	15. Bonds Made and Broken

**I don't believe I've ever said this, but thanks to everyone who has reviewed my story, regular readers and "lurkers" alike. Your encouragement helps me move from one chapter to the next, and reminds why I'm bothering to post this online at all. Getting more than three thousand hits in one month is a definite incentive to keep writing, so don't be shy! If you have something about my stories you want to say, I want to read it!**

**Anyway, on with the chapter.**

* * *

Things were more or less back to normal. "More," because we had school again. I made a show of getting Bella to apply to different colleges and universities, as if she would go on to have a normal life. Charlie would only allow me to visit at designated hours; Bella was grounded, and I was frankly surprised I even got "visitation" at all.

"Less" because although Bella had dropped everything and jumped on a plane to come halfway across the world and literally save me from myself, she was still obsessed with her new "puppy," Jacob. She religiously called him every night, fretting and worrying over the lame excuses she got from his father, and his apparent insistence to be left alone.

I hoped that both of those problems would be resolved soon, and if everything went as I planned, they would be.

There was only one kink in my plans, and I was really only doing it because of Carlisle.

"You know, Edward," he mused after Bella had gone to sleep, Charlie had unceremoniously kicked me out of the house and we had gone back to the Cullen house, "I wonder just how attached Bella has become to you."

I instantly became guarded. "Why? What kind of wager have you thought up now?"

He waved his hand. "Nothing this time. I think we've had quite enough of wagers for the time being. I just want to make sure now that Bella will indeed be bound to you when the time comes."

I squinted suspiciously. "What are you thinking?"

"See if she'll marry you." Totally deadpan.

I stared at him for several seconds. "Have you gone loony?"

"I'm serious, Edward. In a vast majority of human cultures, including this one, a great deal of pressure is placed on the marriage bond. It is one that, while not unbreakable, one is strongly discouraged from breaking it. So, she'll be 'bound' in this life as well as in the next one, so to speak. Come on, Edward. _**For Me**_."

I staggered on my feet from the weight of his edict. He didn't usually exert our bond in this way. I didn't know why he was suddenly doing this, or why he seemed so hell-bent on this matrimony, and he was shielding his thoughts from me very effectively; whatever the reason, I had no choice now; I was bound to him, and he had taken advantage of that bond; I had to do my level best to get Bella to marry me.

Now I just needed a script, a good reason for her. It took me all night.

When I judged we had gone far enough into the forest, I turned toward her and took a deep breath. "Bella, those days when I thought you had died...they were the worst days of my life. I don't ever want to be apart from you again. And furthermore...I want you to marry me."

She stared at me, waiting…"Okay. What's the punch line?"

"Bella, I just proposed to you, and you think it's a joke?"

"Edward, please be serious."

"I am one hundred percent serious." I put on my best "serious face."

"Oh, c'mon," she said, "I'm only eighteen."

"Well, I'm nearly a hundred and ten. It's time I settled down."

"Look, marriage isn't exactly that high on my list of priorities, you know? It was sort of the kiss of death for Renee and Charlie."

"Interesting choice of words." My voice was harder now.

"You know what I mean."

I inhaled deeply. "Please don't tell me that you're afraid of the commitment."

"That's not it exactly," she hedged. "I'm… afraid of Renee. She has some really intense opinions on getting married before you're thirty."

"Because she'd rather you became one of the eternal damned than get married," I said sarcastically.

"You think I'm joking."

"Bella, if you compare the level of commitment between a marital union as opposed to bartering your soul in exchange for an eternity as a vampire…" I shook my head and turned as if to walk away. "If you're not brave enough to marry me, then–"

"Wait!" she interrupted. "What if I did? What if I told you to take me to Vegas now? Would I be a vampire in three days?"

I smiled. "Sure," I said, calling her bluff. "I'll get my car."

"No! Just...hold on," she pleaded. "I can't get married before I'm even out of high school, and even if she's against it, Renee still wouldn't forgive me for not having a 'proper' ceremony..."

I tilted my head toward her and cupped a hand behind my ear. "Is that a 'yes' I hear?"

"Ugh! Yes, I suppose."

"Not exactly the most romantic acceptance ever, but I'll take it." I bent down and lightly kissed her lips. "Thank you. You have no idea how happy this will make me." The kiss made her blush, and she ducked her head, embarassed.

Then she lifted her head and gave me a hard look. "You better keep up your end."

"I wouldn't dream of doing otherwise, _my love_." Girls love sweet talk and all that shit, right?

I guess she did, because she smiled and blushed and turned her gaze downward again. "We better get back. I bet Charlie's wondering where I am, or he will be soon."

I smiled. "Ok. You and he will both have a lot of thinking to do in the near future."

We started walking back to the house, when I sensed-_Damn!_

_**I know you can hear me, bloodsucker.**_ The 'voice' came from up ahead. It was puppy-boy, and he was growing up; he outsized me now.

"Bella," I murmured. "Your new best friend is waiting up the path."

_**She looked eagerly ahead. "Jacob? He's here?"**_

"Yes, but Jacob Black wants to see _me_. That's why he's here."

"To talk?" she asked.

"More or less."

"Why is he here, exactly?" Her voice shook.

I stepped in front of her and smoothed her hair back from her face. "Don't worry, he's not here to fight me. He's acting as… spokesperson for the pack."

"Oh."

I looked at the house again, realized that we would have to meet Jacob, then tightened my arm possessively around Bella's waist and walked with her through the woods. "We should hurry. Charlie's getting impatient."

We didn't have to go far; Jacob waited just a short ways up the path. He lounged against a mossy tree trunk as he waited, his face hard and bitter. He looked at Bella, and then at me. Jacob's mouth stretched into a humorless sneer, and he shrugged away from the tree. He stood on the balls of his bare feet, leaning slightly forward, with his trembling hands clenched into fists. He looked bigger than the last time I'd seen him. Somehow, impossibly, he was still growing. He virtually towered over me now. He looked like a savage.

I stopped as soon as we saw him, leaving a wide space between us and Jacob. I turned my body, shifting Bella so that she was behind me. Even so, she leaned around me to stare at Jacob–to accuse him of leaving her.

His resentful, cynical expression reminded Bella of the last time she'd seen him, with tears in his eyes. Her anger weakened, faltered, as she stared at Jacob. The circumstances of their "reunion" were breaking her heart.

"Bella," Jacob said as a greeting, nodding once toward her without looking away from me.

"Why?" she whispered. "How could you do this to me, Jacob?"

The sneer vanished, but his face stayed hard and rigid. "It's for the best."

"What is that supposed to mean? Do you want Charlie to strangle me?"

Jacob winced, and his eyebrows pulled together, but he didn't answer.

_**I didn't want to hurt anyone-**_

"He didn't want to hurt anyone," I murmured, "he just couldn't bear to be around you when you're spending so much time with me again," I said, explaining the thoughts Jacob didn't want to share.

Jacob's eyes sparked with hate as he glowered at me again.

"Aw, Jake!" she groaned. "I'm grounded! Why do you think I haven't been down to La Push to kick your butt for avoiding my phone calls?"

Jacob's eyes flashed back to her, confused for the first time. "That's why?" he asked, and then  
locked his jaw, like he was sorry he'd said anything.

_**I thought that monster wouldn't let you-**_

"He thought _I_ wouldn't let you, not Charlie," I explained again.

"Stop that," Jacob snapped.

_**Make me.**_

Jacob grimaced, and then gritted his teeth as hard as his fists. "Bella wasn't exaggerating about your… abilities," he said through his teeth. "So you must already know why I'm here."

"Yes," I agreed in a soft voice. "But, before you begin, I need to say something."

Jacob waited, clenching and unclenching his hands as he tried to control the shivers rolling  
down his arms. I couldn't fault Bella's taste. Though I personally didn't swing that way, physically at least, he was a looker; someone Alice might go for, if not for his smell.

"Thank you," I said, and worded my next statement carefully, trying to communicate as much as I could without outright saying it. "I will never be able to tell you how grateful I am. I will owe you for the rest of my… existence."

Jacob stared at me blankly, surprised. He exchanged a quick glance with Bella, but she was just as mystified.

"For keeping Bella alive," I clarified. _**For me. **_"When I… didn't."

"Edward–," Bella started to say, but I held one hand up, keeping my eyes on Jacob.

Understanding washed over Jacob's face before the hard mask returned. "I didn't do it for  
_your_ benefit."

"I know. But that doesn't erase the _gratitude_ I feel. I thought you should know. If there's ever anything in my power to do for you…"

Jacob raised one black brow. _**Die in a fire. Go away.**_

I shook my head. "That's not in my power," I chided him.

"Whose, then?" Jacob growled.

I looked down at Bella then. "Hers. I'm a quick learner, Jacob Black, and I don't make the same mistake twice. I'm here until she orders me away."

_**Don't ask me to leave again, **_I suggested, a whisper in her mind.

"Never," she whispered, eyes locked on mine.

Jacob made a gagging sound.  
She broke free from my gaze to frown at Jacob. "Was there something else you needed, Jacob? You wanted me in trouble–mission accomplished. Charlie might just send me to military school. But that won't keep me away from Edward. There's nothing that can do that. What more do you want?"

Jacob kept his eyes on me. "I just needed to remind your bloodsucking friends of a few key points in the treaty they agreed to. The treaty that is the only thing stopping me from ripping his throat out right this minute."

"We haven't forgotten," I said at the same time that she demanded, "What key points?"

_**Jacob! Really?! Oh wait, you said 'throat,' not 'thing.' My bad.**_

_**In your twisted dreams, disco ball.**_

Jacob glowered at me, but he still answered Bella. "The treaty is quite specific. If any of them bite a human, the truce is over. _Bite_, not _kill_," he emphasized. Finally, he looked back at Bella. His eyes were cold.

It only took her a second to grasp the distinction, and then her face was as cold as his. "That's none of your business."

"The hell it–" was all he managed to choke out, then his mind spasmed-or at least, that's how it seemed to me. _**What?! You can't possibly mean-they're monsters, how can you want to-then you'll be just like them-why would you leave me that way?-there's no way we could-after that-Why?-I love you-I hate you!-I love you-I want you-**_

Her answer sent Jacob into near convulsions. He pressed his fists hard against his temples, closing his eyes tight and curling in on himself as he tried to control the spasms. His face turned sallow green under the russet skin.

"Jake? You okay?" Bella asked anxiously.  
She took a half-step toward him, but I caught her and yanked her back behind me. "Careful! He's not under control," I warned her, and at the same time mocking Jacob's own predicament.

Jacob was already somewhat himself again; only his arms were shaking now. He scowled at me with pure hate. "Ugh. I would never hurt _her_."

_**I oughta kill you!**_

_**Bring it, wolf boy!**_

"BELLA!" Charlie's roar echoed from the direction of the house. "YOU GET IN THE HOUSE THIS INSTANT!"

All of us froze, listening to the silence that followed.

Bella was the first to speak; her voice trembled. "Crap."

Jacob's furious expression faltered. "I am sorry about that," he muttered. "I had to do what I could–I had to try…"

"BELLA! I SEE HIS CAR AND I KNOW YOU'RE OUT THERE! IF YOU AREN'T INSIDE THIS HOUSE IN ONE MINUTE… !" Charlie didn't bother to finish his threat, but he was obviously very impatient-and probably quite angry.

"Let's go," I said.

Bella looked back at Jacob, torn.

"Sorry," he whispered quietly. '"Bye, Bells."

"You promised," she reminded him desperately. "Still friends, right?"

Jacob shook his head slowly. "You know how hard I've tried to keep that promise, but… I can't see how to keep trying. Not now…" He struggled to keep his hard mask in place, but it wavered, and then disappeared. "Miss you," he mouthed. He reached out a hand toward her, his fingers outstretched, like he wished they were long enough to cross the distance between them.

"Me, too," she choked out. Her hand reached toward his across the wide space.

"Jake…" She took a step toward him. She would embrace him.

I pulled her back, restraining her.

"It's okay," she tried to tell me, looking up to me face with trusting eyes. I would understand, right?

My eyes were undoubtedly cold. "No, it's not."

"Let her go," Jacob snarled, furious again. "She wants to!" He took two long strides forward. A glint of anticipation flashed in his eyes. His chest seemed to swell as it shuddered.

I pushed her behind me, wheeling to face Jacob.

"No! Edward–!"

"ISABELLA SWAN!"

"Come on! Charlie's mad!" Her voice was panicked, but not because of Charlie now. "Hurry!" She tugged at me. I relaxed and pulled her back slowly, always keeping my eyes on Jacob as we retreated.

Jacob watched us with a dark scowl on his bitter face. The anticipation drained from his eyes, and then, just before the forest came between us, his face suddenly crumpled in pain.

And right there she vowed to herself that she would see him smile, and soon. She would find a way to keep her friend. That would mean more trouble for me.

I kept my arm tight around her waist, holding her close.

I didn't envy Bella her problems, and she had some serious problems.

Her new best friend counted her with his enemies.

If she didn't become a vampire soon, she thought the Volturi would kill her.

And now it seemed that if she did, the Quileute werewolves would try to do the job themselves–along with trying to kill the rest of us.

Very serious problems. So why did they all suddenly seem insignificant when we broke  
through the last of the trees and she caught sight of the expression on Charlie's purple face?

Easy. She was still open enough to me to allow me to sneak assurances into her mind, that she most likely thought came from her. I squeezed her gently. "I'm here."

She drew in a deep breath, and I spoke more of my assurances into her mind, drawing her toward her inevitable acceptance of fate.

_**Edward is here...**_

_That's true. Edward is here, with his arms around me._

_**I can face anything as long as that's true...**_

_I can face anything as long as that remains true._

_**We're meant to be together-it's practically destiny...**_

She squared her shoulders and walked forward to meet her fate, with her "destiny," the instrument of her future subjugation and bondage, solidly at her side.

* * *

**Annnnnnd cut! In case it wasn't obvious, the bold is Edward, and Bella's personal thoughts are only italicized.**

**Whew! Two books now. Obviously, New Moon was considerably shorter than either Twilight: A Darkward Tale or the text from which I acquired my inspiration. Even so, I hope you enjoyed reading it. I enjoyed writing it, most of the time.**

**Next book I will look at is Eclipse, and honestly I'm not sure if I will do it; I'm not familiar with the events that unfold, and at present have absolutely no clear picture of how any of the characters will act/react. Either way, "The Darkward Tales" WILL continue, with Breaking Dawn if nothing else, so "author alert" me or just periodically check back, because I promise the adventures of these established characters are not over yet!**


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